Shortage of stickers

There was so much chaos that inspection stickers, affixed to the left side of the front windscreen of vehicles that passed inspection, ran out. This led to panic among drivers whose vehicles were inspected and passed but could not get the stickers for their windscreen. A man said he spent the entire day on Monday driving to authorised inspection centres in a vain attempt at getting the sticker.

Ram Deo from Tunapuna said ge got his car inspected and passed “very early” on Monday morning but there was no sticker.

He was advised to check other centres.

“I spent the entire day driving around. I even reached as far as San Fernando going to different garages, but all the stickers had run out,” Deo said.

Newsday was told that even in Tobago, motorists got wind of the social media post and went to the few inspection centres in the sister isle. Lines were long as motorists waited for several hours to have their vehicles inspected.

Minister of Works and Transport Rohan Sinanan yesterday said there was a challenge with some centres which ran out of stickers, due to the mad rush caused by the social media post.

“Someone ran a campaign that licensing officers were clamping down on people and everybody rushed to these garages.

These garages went to licensing office and bought up the stickers and now we have a little challenge. Now they (garages) are out of the stickers. But there is no campaign on by the Licensing authorities. It was just a rumour that caused a lot of panic and put the system under some pressure,” Minister Sinanan said.

A release from the Ministry also confirmed no specific, planned crackdown by Licensing Office and that the inspection of vehicles is in fact an ongoing process conducted by Motor Vehicle Officers throughout the year.

“Cabinet Minute No. 1787 of 2013 which saw the Expansion of the Traffic Warden System noted that the Traffic Warden Division is ‘an institutional framework for dealing with the management of traffic and providing much needed assistance to the police service’ as well as “increased awareness of road safety in schools and on the roads,” the ministry release stated. The fine for non-inspection or expired inspection stickers is $5000.