Describing the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic (Amendment) Bill 2017 as a “surreptitious” way to extort more money from citizens, Opposition Senator Danny Solomon accused the Government of inflicting financial terrorism on the working class.
He was making his contribution to the debate on the bill in the Upper House Thursday night.
The debate wound-up around 1.30am and the bill will go into the committee stage at the next Senate session on Tuesday.
Opposition and Independent senators had problems with the bill which Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi said seeks to ease the backlog in the criminal justice system and improve road safety.
The bill proposes to do this by increasing fines for traffic violations, implementing a red light camera and demerit point system and installing microchips on motorists’ number plates to easily track them.
Solomon described the fines as dramatic, outrageous and excessive and said there is no commensurate reasoning or justification for them except to raise revenue for the Government.
He said fines have increased from 100 per cent to 3,000 per cent with double the jail time in some instances.
Failure to pay fines will lead to further increases and, eventually, the seizure of your vehicle.
Citing some examples, he said a $1,000 fine for a traffic violation has been increased to $5,000, a 500 per cent increase. Another $2,000 fine has been increased to $6,000, a 300 per cent increase, he said.
Solomon said citizens are already being assaulted by fiscal measures and financial terrorism by the Government with previous taxes and this bill is no different.
“It comes under the guise of road safety but is, in fact, extortion. You can’t use fines to raise revenue to pay a budget deficit. The AG is looking to try and make road users cough up money.”
Since the implementation of speed guns, 1,500 motorists have been issued tickets. In June another 141 traffic tickets were given to traffic offenders in Tobago.
Indicating the bill is a commercial venture, Solomon said it seems the Government has already worked out how much money it will make from the traffic lights outside Parliament on Wrightson Road.
He referred to Al-Rawi’s earlier disclosure that the lights there have 4,000 infractions in a year.
Solomon said the bill proposes to charge offenders $5,000 for their first red light offence and $7,000 for the second and, at $5,000 an infraction, it seems the Government has already calculated it would make $20 million a year from only one set of lights.
“They want to pay the budget deficit by camera infractions,” Solomon said.
Begging to differ the bill’s purpose is to keep people safe, he cited several studies which show red light cameras do not reduce crashes but they actually increase after installation.
“We don’t buy it. To raise revenue, we see it, we hear it. I think the bill is designed to make money and does not save lives or make roads safer.”
Solomon said the sad part is the Government does not care who it hurts and working class men and women who ply their trade on the road daily will be most vulnerable.
