TRAFFIC cops in Clarendon yesterday issued 13 tickets and confiscated 12 pairs of motor vehicle registration plates in a two-hour operation along the Osbourne Store main road in that parish.

The tickets were for defective vehicles and other violations of the road code such as not wearing seat belts and vehicle overload. Defective vehicles included those that had obscured windshields, smooth tyres, faulty steering wheels, excessive exhaust noises and myriad mechanical faults.

“We stopped about 36 vehicles and confiscated 12 pairs of registration plates. That shows that for every three cars, one had some type of defect,” Corporal Llewelyn Wynter of the Four Paths police told the Observer.

“We stopped a truck that had six wheels. All six were so badly worn that we had to order him (driver) to remove them and the funny thing is he was driving for someone else,” Wynter added.

He said yesterday’s spot check was “an ongoing drive”, and not a reactionary measure to two accidents earlier this week which claimed the lives of ten persons.

Monday night, a two-vehicle crash on the St Catherine leg of Highway 2000 killed a family of six and injured four others. The following night, an accident on the Guanaboavale main road in rural St Catherine claimed four more lives.

Wynter said the Clarendon traffic department stages frequent spot checks, but that they each have a different focus.

“This time around we were checking for fitness and roadworthiness and we had certifying officers from the Clarendon Island Traffic Authority with us.

“We will not stop until we can take all defective vehicles off the roads. It’s a mammoth task and some of them escape us but we won’t stop,” he warned.

The policeman added that public passengers ought to be more selective in the vehicles they board and not merely concern themselves with getting from point A to point B in the shortest possible time.