FAULTY vehicles that should not have been on the roads caused 877 accidents between 2000 and 2003. Those are the latest statistics available from the National Road Safety Council (NRSC), whose Executive Director Paula Fletcher is convinced that corruption is a big part of the problem.

“People will buy their certificates of fitness and put a defective vehicle on the road that will likely cause an accident,” she told the Sunday Observer. “It’s a big concern for us.”

There is no current data available on exactly how many faulty vehicles are on the roads and it is difficult to access the information needed, Fletcher added, because of the inefficiencies at the island’s vehicle examination depots.

“We don’t have a proper system of testing and certifying motor vehicles,” she explained, adding that this laxness and lack of accountability within the system helps breed corruption.

“We have to look to reorganise and modernise how that department operates,” she said. “Corruption and lack of accountability is rampant in Jamaica, and so it shows up everywhere, including on our roads.”

In the latest figures available, the NRSC estimated that at the beginning of the 1990s motor vehicle accidents were costing Jamaica US$40 million a year. The socioeconomic costs included lost production, medical expenses, damage to property, administrative costs, as well as pain, grief and suffering. In 1996, traffic accidents cost the health sector J$419 million.

Like the NRSC, the Motor Repairers Association of Jamaica (MRAJ) is convinced that defective vehicles contribute significantly to road carnage. “Defective cars outrightly contribute to motor vehicle accidents,” said the MRAJ’s vice-president, Everette Fenton.

“If you neglect (your vehicle) because you cannot afford to pay, you have no time, or because you just don’t have a trained mechanic, then you will not only contribute to your own dilemma, but to others either by causing accidents or mowing down schoolchildren,” he said.

According to Fenton, most of the mechanical defects that can result in accidents occur in vehicles’ CV joints, tie-rod ends, ball joints or because of worn tyres.

“A worn-out tyre can lead to tragic circumstances and so they must be changed,” he warned.

But Fenton, like the NRSC’s Fletcher, was particularly annoyed at examination depot staff members who seek out or facilitate owners/drivers of vehicles that are not road-worthy.

“They are more guilty than the person paying the money, because they are sending drivers on the road with lethal weapons,” he noted.

Spot checks conducted by traffic cops was not enough to get these “lethal weapons” off the road, the MRAJ vice-president said. “It proves nothing when you just have one policeman examining your documents,” he noted. “The right examination is when you see an inspector and a plain-clothed individual around a desk.”

Fenton said as a possible solution to the inefficiencies and corruption that now plagues the certification process, his association is looking to revive a proposal they had previously made.

The MRAJ is suggesting that the vehicle certification process be removed from the purview of state employees and be reassigned to a list of qualified garages.

“It would be less strain on the people and they would be more encouraged to get them passed the right way without having to join long lines,” he said.

There was also an added benefit, he said. “When we send a defective vehicle on the road, then we can be held accountable.”

MRAJ members have already taken a proactive approach to reducing the number of defective vehicles on the road, Fenton said.

“If a customer takes in a vehicle to be repaired and we list the defects, if he doesn’t want us to correct all the faults we make it clear on the receipts that the vehicle has defects and is not roadworthy,” he explained.