FALMOUTH, Trelawny — Commander of the Trelawny Police Division, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Winston Milton, is warning unruly motorists that the police will be rigorously enforcing the new Road Traffic Act, which came into effect on Wednesday, February 1.

DSP Milton underscored that for the most part, the 22 fatal motor vehicle collisions, which resulted in some 31 fatalities in the parish during 2022, resulted from speeding, overtaking and failure to give way.

“Certainly we will be stringently enforcing the new Road Traffic Act and Regulations. It’s a tool that we have asked for and having received it, we believe that it is our responsibility as the primary law enforcement agency of the country and of the parish to ensure that this piece of legislation is enforced and that our citizens adhere to them,” DSP Milton said.

“Over the years we as the police have been clamouring for an adjustment in the Road Traffic Act and Regulations because the previous one had been enforced for approximately 85 years. And even though several amendments have been made to the law, we believe that it was not effective to treat with some of the challenges that we were faced with in our current society. Consequently, we welcome the advent of the Act that came into being on the first of February.”

He was speaking at a town hall meeting put on by the Egeton Newman-led Transport Operators Development and Sustainable Services (TODSS), held at the offices of the Trelawny Municipal Corporation to discuss the new Road Traffic Act with stakeholders, on Tuesday.

The senior cop appealed to the TODSS to work in conjunction with the two taxi associations operating in Trelawny to ensure that the cabbies adhere to the law.

For instance, he highlighted that drivers should wear badges while on duty.

He also called on the owners and taxi associations to “check out” the background of drivers before employing them.

“Another concern that we have here in Trelawny is the vetting of drivers. Under the Road Traffic Act, our drivers are still required to have badges and in order to do so the police have a responsibility to ensure that these are not persons who are convicted of crimes.

“But what we have found out is that in most instances the owners and operators of PPV vehicles don’t really seek to ascertain the background of the persons they are employing to drive these vehicles,” DSP Milton argued.

“So an individual may have his services terminated by a particular owner or operator and they move to another owner and operator and are employed by these individuals and are providing the same services even though there were flaws that were detected whilst they were operating previously. So this is one area that we hope to see improvement on your side as the umbrella group with the various associations. So that once a driver is flagged by a particular association or a particular owner, then he is flagged by all.”

He also called for the improvement of order by the cabbies at terminals.

“Quite frankly, the hustling mentality that now exists on some of our public thoroughfares, some of our points of termination and origin for public passenger vehicles, is one area we need to improve on. I certainly would like to see more order as it relates to how these motor vehicles are parked and arranged at these points of termination prior to beginning the new leg of the journey so that the kind of hustling mentality and the speeding too to get from one point to the other, is reduced.

He was quick to appeal to the travelling public to carefully choose the vehicles they travel on.

“And the fact, too, that we are saying to our commuters, you do have choice. You have choices in the vehicles that you take. If you recognise the particular driver to be in discipline then certainly you have an obligation to yourself to ensure that you choose another set of drivers who are more disciplined or who are more customer service-oriented.

“So this is an important area that we would like to see improvement in and this will have to be from the various associations,” the head honcho of the Trelawny Police Division said.