In TT, vehicles are licensed to kill

THE EDITOR: Enclosed is an article I read in issue 27/2 August 2004 of Transport Retort - a transport magazine in the UK. The short article depicted Trinidad and Tobago as a paradise being spoilt by vehicles which are licensed to kill. Internationally we are known for crimes and now this Dr Samuel Joseph is purporting that car dealers, the Licensing Office, the laws and even the mechanics in our beloved island are incompetent. Transport Retort is a reputable magazine whose Director is Stephen Joseph OBE who happened to win the Lifetime Contribution to Local Transport 2004 Award in the UK. I hope this article can be retracted with an apology from Transport 2000 and Dr Samuel Joseph. It is hoped that TIDCO may be able to do some damage control as well.

FRANKLYN RAMPERSAD
Trinidadian visiting from London

Postcard from Trinidad and Tobago
Is autogeddon approaching in this Caribbean paradise?

Roads are meant to take us to places, unfortunately they often become places of loss and sorrow. Trinidad and its sister island Tobago are at the southernmost end of the West Indies chain. This cosmopolitan society of 1.3 million people is the home of Caribbean carnival, the place where steelband and calypso were created. Motor vehicles are the main form of transport available but enforcement or any form of control is virtually impossible. The administrative structure is 50 years old. Britain established this before independence when the vehicle population was a mere 2000; today the vehicle population has risen to around 500,000. Road fatalities are a common occurrence in Trinidad and Tobago. The cause is largely the lack of automotive standards and a lawless culture. There are no driver training standards, no driver testing standards and no vehicle testing standards. The structure and function of the transport industry in this country clearly demonstrate the negative features of unproductive operation, corruption and fraudulent practices.

The roads, which evolved from foot tracks, became main roads without proper foundations. Consequently these roads are destroyed by extra-heavy vehicles, which operate without any regulation of weight per axle. Since the mid-1990s Trinidad and Tobago has seen a huge population of motor vehicles reassembled from foreign used parts, mainly from Japan. The use of foreign used parts in assembling and rebuilding motor vehicles may be cheaper in the short term but there are repercussions, which have a deadly impact on the nation and need to be addressed. The end result is a great number of defective vehicles on the roads. The average local mechanic also largely misunderstands the emission control system of the foreign used ehicle. This is bad news for our environment and road safety because the computerised system is important to the normal functioning of the vehicle. In Trinidad and Tobago, the vehicle is licensed to kill.

Dr Samuel Joseph, Transportation Environmental Protection and Productive Development Charter Initiative of Trinidad and Tobago.