The new Road Traffic Act that is yet to be passed in Parliament, despite the increasing carnage and indiscipline on the nation’s roads, has come into sharp focus again, with the police insisting that they are writing hundreds of thousands of tickets each year, but with very little impact due to the gaps in the legislation.

Speaking at a forum with Jamaica Observer journalists at the newspaper’s head offices in St Andrew last Tuesday, senior police officers pointed out that last year alone 408,000 tickets were issued, averaging 34,000 per month. Still, wrecklessness, indiscipline and the resultant frequent crashes abound on the nation’s roadways.

“Why that kind of behaviour continues to happen is because there are some weaknesses in the current legislation that allows for these persons to remain on the road. Unless the law and system is functioning effectively, what you’re going to find happening … it cannot be solved by just writing tickets. There will have to be some end result — that when they turn up at the tax office they will be told that they have so many tickets, their driver’s licence cannot be renewed,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) in charge of operations Clifford Blake stated.

Citing examples of the gaping cracks in the system which enable situations such as the rampant dangerous driving displayed by route and ‘robot’ taxis that can be observed along major corridors such as Red Hills Road in St Andrew, Blake said: “Two months ago, one of these guys was held and over the past five years he was issued 991 tickets and he had 254 warrants outstanding. The cars are seized from them each week, they are given tickets, they go to court, they plead guilty. They hop into another car because there is a weakness in the legislation in terms of the accumulation of points and the cancellation of licences. They are able to go back to the tax office and renew their driver’s licences.

“One of those bus drivers that run along Waterhouse was held in a spot check and he had 500 and odd tickets over the past seven years, yet was still able to go and license his vehicle, renew his driver’s licence, and insure his vehicle. So, it’s not a matter that the police are not writing tickets,” he continued.

Blake argued too that as far back as 1998, there were offences such as dangerous driving that were not even ticketable. “You couldn’t write tickets for these, because these were not included in the Act. So for example, if you were in Westmoreland and somebody committed dangerous driving down there and he was from St Thomas, you would have to take his information, go to a JP (Justice of the Peace), get a summons and then go to St Thomas to give him that summons for him to come back to court in Westmoreland, because you could only proceed by summons,” he explained.

Another issue compounding the problem is that although seizing the vehicles acts as a deterrent, the drivers are not usually the owners hence, even when a vehicle is seized they simply move on to a new employer and a new vehicle.

Head of the Criminal Investigation Branch and Assistant Commissioner of Police Elan Powell, formerly in charge of the Traffic Division, said owners of vehicles must now be thrown into the spotlight. “To the driver, that (seizure) is not a major problem. We need to [be able to] ensure that the owners are held accountable so that they would exercise more care in who they employ.”

Yet another issue that makes it difficult for the police is that applicants for driver’s licences are not presently required to verify their address. “Most driver’s licences for these guys are open lots or abandoned buildings. So you can’t even execute the warrants,” Powell said.

Statistics obtained from the Road Safety Unit of the Ministry of Transport show that up to April 21, there were 127 fatalities on the nation’s roads, 11 more than the similar period for 2015 and 51 more than in 2012. Westmoreland had the highest number of deaths, which stood at 23; followed by St Catherine with 13; St Elizabeth, St Ann and Trelawny 10 each; St Andrew 16; St James eight; Manchester seven; Hanover six; St Mary, Clarendon and Portland five each; Kingston six; and St Thomas three.

The Government has promised to pass the Road Traffic Act this year, which has already got the House’s approval and is now waiting to be debated in the Senate. The updated law repeals and replaces the existing Road Traffic Act of 1938, in keeping with international road safety best practices.