Transport Commissioner: Licensing officers did not stop ambulance

Transport Commissioner Clive Clarke has denied that licensing officers stopped an ambulance in Tobago during a joint anti-crime exercise while it was transporting a patient in an emergency.

This comes after a claim by social media users that an ambulance, driving with its siren on and carrying a critically ill patient, was stopped by licensing officers in Lowlands.

Speaking on the Tobago Updates morning show on July 31, Clarke said when he heard of the incident, he and police road safety co-ordinator Brent Batson quickly investigated.

“What we understand: yes, there was a road operation in the vicinity of Lowlands.

"We have seen time to time during roadblocks, emergency vehicles sometimes have a little challenge in getting through.”

But he said steps were taken to give way to those vehicles, which was what happened that day.

“Sometimes you have to walk up to that vehicle and let the driver know, 'I’m going to allow you to come through this direction to get to your destination,' which is exactly what happened...

"So the vehicle was not stopped by any enforcement officer – a police officer or a licensing officer.

He said the driver would have been told how to bypass the traffic, "And that’s a common practice....We would have ensured that the ambulance would have got by.”

He said the transport officers or licensing officers continue to work and carry out joint operations with the police in both Trinidad and Tobago. His team, he explained, is in Tobago at the request of the police to facilitate operations relevant to the Motor Vehicle and Road Traffic Act.

Trinidad licensing officers were accustomed to those exercises, he explained.

“Enforcement on the nation’s road at this magnitude, it is not new. It is not new for us as licensing officers because we conduct this type of exercise every day in Trinidad, and I mean at this magnitude. Likewise, we have visited Tobago, time to time. What really spiked my interest with Tobago is that you will know that there are couple transformations at licensing – bringing new systems, new ICT systems – and those systems have been revealing certain practices that I, as commissioner, have serious concerns (about).”

He said he has information about vehicles are being found with duplicated chassis and even those registered twice.

In another incident, the head of an animal carcass wasset on fire metres away from a road exercise near the Cyd Gray Complex in Roxborough on July 31, while Tobago police were said to be searching for a man who called on all obeahmen on the island to unite to “deal with" licensing officers involved in the ongoing anti-crime joint exercises.