New traffic fines are burdensome

THE EDITOR, Sir:

IAM of the view that there are agents of the state that are bent on implementing chaos and frustration in our country.

One of the new transport regulations to be enacted will force the owners of PPV motor vehicles like Ezroy Millwood, if he were still alive, and those owned by persons who rent motor vehicles to the public to pay the traffic tickets of the drivers of their motor vehicles. This is madness. It will, however, be implemented by a government which appears to be out of touch with the people and has gone berserk.

In the future, will the owners of motor vehicles be forced to answer to other deviant behaviours on our roads, such as manslaughter committed by their drivers?

Some drivers will spitefully commit infringements on the road and force the owners who they have fallen out with to pay the fines imposed, and then move on to drive the motor vehicle of a new owner.

This Government is behaving like it is in its fifth term and is weary of the work that governing entails.

The Transport Authority, like a demigod, has among its rules the requirement to do fitness tests twice yearly. How many more Caribbean countries have this burdensome rule? Jamaica’s public transport sector is the most burdened in the Caribbean. The Transport Authority has a ‘constitutional right’ to arbitrarily raise fees without consulting with stakeholders in the sector. The other stakeholders, in the public transport sector, have to suffer and compromise their service in order to keep funds in their pockets and are treated as if they have no moral standing to ask for a fare increase.

‘MONEY TREE’

In this very difficult economy, an individual will credit a motor vehicle and licensed it as a public carrier. This individual will then be treated as a ‘money tree’ and liable for taxes and fees much greater than what the politicians and many businessmen are paying.

Taxi men are treated like ‘school dropouts’ and are regarded as persons who cannot articulate arguments that can evoke the necessary actions to make their businesses profitable, without compromising their vehicles and their service.

DIANE SIMPSON