TACKLING DRIVERS WHO DISMISS COURT ORDERS

The disgraceful level of fatal road accidents, which plagued Trinidad and Tobago in 2003, can be effectively reversed in 2004 with relatively minor changes to the laws governing traffic offences and the needed will to implement the different measures. There must be telling systems in place for dealing with the various levels of traffic offences, governing drivers, cyclists (whether motor or pedal) and pedestrians made all the more remarkable through the imposing of suitable penalties. Motorists and other road users must understand and indeed be made to understand that if and when they break the law, their actions will attract suited and tough punishment. If they do not wish to be punished, then they must seek to comply with the law.

Drastic action is needed, and Police officers must be prepared to enforce the law regardless of the individual offender’s financial position and/or social status, or whether the person is a relative, a friend or related to a friend. There must be impartial treatment for all without any senseless question of economic status or class being factored into the equation. We cannot and must not bring sentiment into it. The individual who believes that he or she, although heaven forbid, is entitled to favoured treatment, must set the needed example, and comply with the law, rather than consciously break it and then use ‘‘contacts’’ to escape laid down penalties. For it is this seeming ability of the few to break the law with apparent impunity which has been a contributory factor in the sad increase in waywardness in the country today. For example, drug lords, some of them high on the so called social register, have become increasingly wealthy off the suffering and degradation of the many, who year in year out fall by the wayside.

The community condemns the moral slide of the weak minded, as indeed this slide is deserving of condemnation, while maintaining a deafening silence re the manifest ability of the drug lord and/or lady to bestride “the land like a mighty Colossus.” But I have strayed. When tickets are handed out to motorists who park illegally, whether on the wrong side of roads, in front of fire hydrants or within a certain distance of corners; or to motorists who are accused of inconsiderate driving, driving without care and attention, and they fail to attend Court as the official notification of their traffic offences demands of them, they should be fined in absentia and their driving permits suspended for six months. Because the person who had parked the vehicle may not have been its owner and the owner or driver cannot be immediately located, then the vehicle should be towed away and impounded. It would then be the owner’s duty to identify beyond the shadow of a doubt the person to whom he had loaned the vehicle. The Police would then charge the driver. This would not absolve the owner from appearing in Court, as the ticket would have been issued to him, but his not having been the driver at the time of the alleged offence would be taken into consideration.

While the suspension of their driving licences may appear harsh to some, it is necessary for the conveying of the message that ignoring an order to appear in Court for an offence would not be tolerated. The necessary steps, however, should be taken to ensure that the motorists are notified of the action taken, including sending registered letters to their known addresses and/or their work places. Should the affected motorists be caught driving within the period of their suspension, then summonses to appear in Court should be issued. Should a motorist so affected be found guilty of the offence with which he is charged, then it should be mandatory for the presiding Magistrate to sentence him to jail.

For the record, illegal parking, particularly when this involves parking directly opposite to another vehicle, or several vehicles being parked opposite to other vehicles, effectively narrows the roadway and slows down traffic sometimes to a virtual crawl. Drivers who are late for appointment or for work, have on occasion been stupidly tempted to drive at a faster rate, once the roadways are clear, in order to make up for time lost. This, needless to say, can cause accidents. Motorists who are issued summonses for speeding, dangerous driving and/or driving while under the influence of alcohol, if found guilty in Court, should have their driving permits automatically suspended for a prescribed period, in addition to being fined. If during the time within which their permits are suspended they are found driving, they should be hauled before the Court, and if found guilty, an automatic jail sentence imposed. While the above may appear drastic, something positive has to be done to effectively reduce the annual carnage on the nation’s roads.

As my Mathemarics Master at Queen’s Royal College, the late Grant Elcock Pilgrim, used to say: “Hard ears you won’t hear. Hard ears you will feel.” It was a popular saying at the time, but the way ‘Piggyman’ would deliver it in his Barbadian brogue, would, particularly if accompanied by detention and ‘‘lines’’ make most of the erring students squirm. An offender would be ordered to write 200 times the phrase: “The way of the transgressor is exceedingly difficult.” Pilgrim’s tactic was effective 60 years ago, because students did not relish having to miss playing football or cricket after school, or exchanging notes on schoolwork with their classmates. In addition, their hands were wearied by the writing of lines. In 2004 the authorities must be brave enough to develop and implement measures, some of them undoubtedly harsh. But the wider society will benefit and understand, and hopefully, in the medium and long term, even the transgressors.