Minister of Justice, Delroy Chuck, has warned that delinquent drivers may soon be required to clear outstanding traffic tickets before they are able to renew their driver’s licence.
“The system is not working, and we have to find an alternative way, and we are going to find it, because all those tickets have to be paid,” he said.
“ I am proposing… that all of those warrants, all of those unpaid tickets will be put against the driver’s licence of those individuals and be put against the vehicle that was being driven, so when that vehicle comes to be renewed, [it] can’t be renewed until the driver pays the fine,” Minister Chuck said.
“We want to put in place those provisions, so those persons who feel they can collect tickets like confetti, must know that their day of reckoning is at hand,” he added.
Emphasising the problem of unpaid traffic tickets, Minister Chuck noted that at the Kingston Traffic Court alone, 65,000 persons did not pay for the first six months of this year. He argued that with unpaid tickets sent to the courts after 30 days, that amounts to about 10,000 per month.
“That’s about 500 warrants on average being issued every day,” Minister Chuck lamented.
He pledged that “we are going to collect every single one. If you don’t think you breached the law, go fight it in court, but you can’t just ignore the law like that”.
Minister Chuck pointed out that there have been three moratoriums to allow for persons with outstanding traffic tickets to pay, and there are no plans to have another.
He is encouraging motorists with outstanding tickets to call the traffic headquarters at the Elleston Road Police Station. “They have data of every ticket that has not been paid,” he indicated.
Minister Chuck was speaking at a Justice of the Peace (JP) training session at the Wembley Centre of Excellence in Hayes, Clarendon, on Thursday (October 18).
The session was held to hear the concerns of the JP and assist them with providing solutions for issues they face while they serve citizens.
