MOTOR vehicle drivers and owners are being warned to pay up traffic tickets, as neglecting to do so could prevent them from acquiring substitute driver’s licences, and affect information provided to sources, such as potential employers, who request verification of their licences from the authorities.

Head of the Island Traffic Authority (ITA) Kenute Hare said in a Jamaica Observer interview that requests are frequently made for substitute licences, but many applicants have outstanding tickets, which factors into whether the requests are granted.

The ITA says that between January and May, there were 6,523 applications for substitute licences, 36 per cent of them with outstanding traffic tickets, which totalled 47,724 tickets. For the month of May, there were 1,428 applicants for substitute driver’s licence with 30 per cent of the applicants having outstanding tickets. Kingston accounted for 19 per cent of the applicants with outstanding tickets, and 13 per cent had over 50 outstanding tickets.

“We have a lot of persons who have lost their driver’s licence and they believe that we would not have checked for those things. You must clear your outstanding ticket before you can get a substitute driver’s licence. It eventually comes to the Island Traffic Authority (from the tax office). The ITA is the licensing authority, so the tax office is carrying out the delegated functions for us — we do not have cashiers, we do not collect money at any of our depots,” he said.

He was speaking against the background of the regulations to the Road Traffic Act (2018), which was re-tabled in the House of Representatives on Tuesday. The regulations were first tabled by Transport Minister Audley Shaw in February, then withdrawn on Tuesday, and re-tabled.

“Often, quite a number of persons request our providing them with an abstract of their driver’s licence…sometimes they are seeking employment, or they are overseas and they want to have proof that they have a Jamaican driver’s licence. What we do is produce a driving abstract that would provide the requisite information, however, if the person has outstanding traffic tickets, we encourage them to have those outstanding traffic tickets resolved. We’ll tell you that you have outstanding tickets (but) if you don’t clear it, we are going to put in the abstract that you have outstanding traffic tickets,” Hare explained.

He noted that many people refrain from paying tickets to avoid attracting demerit points on their licences, but stressed that there will eventually be consequences for leaving these tickets unpaid.

Hare said he was also encouraging employers to ask for abstract licence information from potential employees who will be driving on their behalf, as this information provides more details of the driver profile.

Additionally, Hare said there have been a few cases of people trying to circumvent the system by applying for substitutes immediately after their licence is suspended. “We have had some instances [where], for example, persons driver’s licences are suspended, for example, by the courts today [and] what we found is persons would hurriedly go to the tax office, tried to present a case as if their driver’s licence was lost, but I don’t think that they understood that we would have checked our database for everything,” he explained, pointing out that someone with a suspended licence would have multiple traffic tickets, which again the ITA would detect in its system.

Meanwhile, he said the ITA will be working more closely with the courts to secure reports on the outcomes of traffic offence cases.

Under the new Road Traffic Act, the authority will keep a driver’s offence register, detailing drivers’ and vehicle owners’ particulars, and their traffic violations.

Hare added that the ITA is also collaborating with the Ministry of National Security, and that it intends to educate the public on how the demerit system works, and how to avoid accumulating points.