Be careful how you hire unskilled drivers – corporal

Corporal Lorenzo Haughton of the St Catherine North police traffic department has berated some owners of public transportation vehicles who employ unskilled drivers to operate passenger vehicles.

“Some persons just have this thing that they can just jump in a taxi and say they are operators and it’s not like that. The owners employ persons to operate their vehicle who are not up to par,” Haughton told participants in a Transport Operators Development Sustainable Services British Caribbean Insurance Company-sponsored first responders workshop, held at the Linstead Transportation Centre on Sunday.

“They just buy the vehicle and someone come and say he has a public passenger vehicle (PPV) licence and they give them and say, ‘Go make money’. Vehicle defective and they want X amount by Friday,” Haughton continued, adding that this increases the likelihood of very serious accidents on the roadways.

This practice has raised concerns in traffic law enforcement circles, especially against the background of the yearly average of 341 traffic accident fatalities in Jamaica over the past 14 years, 30 per cent or 273 being males, and with 2012 being the only year where the death toll from accidents was under 300, according to figures from the Road Safety Unit of the Ministry of Transport. The police are faced with the challenge of keeping the roads safe for all during the busy festive season.

Road deaths this year

Up to the end of October, there were 374 deaths from 333 fatal accidents. The seven-day period from October 22 to 28 saw eight fatalities – St Catherine and Manchester accounting for six, all being men. The pressure is mounting on these owners to employ drivers who will operate their vehicles safely, in accordance with the road traffic laws.

Advancing the notion that one traffic accident has the capacity to take more lives than a single gunshot, making it more dangerous, Haughton said that some simple things that can be done to prevent an accident are overlooked by these operators.

One of his main concerns is the unwillingness on the part of these operators to read the road code booklet, once they get a licence.

“Some of these operators, from they received their driver’s licence, they don’t look back on the ‘red book’,” he said, making reference to the road code booklet.

Haughton said the PPV badge issued to operators by the Transport Authority is of significance, since it has to be issued to operators in good standing with the law.

He said, if owners take time out to ensure that operators have a legitimate badge before giving them their vehicle to operate, it would help the police to solve abductions and other crimes committed by criminals who attach fake licence plates to the vehicles to commit these crimes.