Dear Editor
A recent article in your newspapers titled “Hicken lays down riot act to senior traffic officers” is indeed a most encouraging development. For it is clear that the rapid pace of the country’s development, particularly road infrastructure, is in no way parallel to the country’s road users who willfully and wantonly break the traffic laws on a daily basis. This wanton disregard for our roadways and others who use it has now become so commonplace that I am certain that these errant drivers can no longer differentiate between right and wrong on our roads.
While our COP has every right to be extremely concerned about the number of deaths on our roadways, there is a possible basic fundamental contributor which the police may be completely missing. A drunk or speeding driver didn’t just turn up one day and decide to put his life and other innocent road users at risk. It is more a culmination of a mentality which he developed after continuously committing other “minor” traffic offenses with little or no consequences. And this is where I strongly feel his force needs to be more proactive. For too long traffic police have paid very little heed to drivers who ignore traffic lights, stop or park anywhere along the road, overtaking in a prohibited zone, ignoring the right of passage on turning lanes etc. Or more specifically, too few drivers face the law for such offences since most are “informally” settled out of court.
When drivers routinely commit these offences with little or no consequences, or realize that a small payment can make their offense go away, it empowers them to commit more dangerous and life threatening road offenses which ultimately culminate with a tragedy. I therefore respectfully suggest to the COP that part of his “riot act” should include that traffic officers’ start paying more serious attention to these lesser offenses. Maybe within each division there should be a core of officers specifically assigned to deal with the stopping and parking problem. And if the law permits, use the many cameras which are positioned at so many of our stop lights to catch those offenders who commit their acts on a daily basis. Just as importantly, the COP has to mandate his senior staff to collect adequate data which can identify whether the force is making any headway into improving our roads.
For example, statistics need to be collected to show the main types of offenses, how many offenses make it to court, if there are regular repeat offenders, identify zones which seem to be at highest risk to errant drivers etc. A simple benchmark should be created to start a protracted enforcement campaign. Should there be any increase or decrease in this benchmark then at least it will be a gauge to determine if the senior officers are doing their job efficiently. I strongly feel that if we mandate (through stringent enforcement of the law) our drivers to adhere to the “simpler” road laws, then we will create a more cautious and law abiding driver, who will ultimately use our roadways more judiciously.
Sincerely,
M. Abraham
