Toll roads – A conflict that must be resolved
IT WAS last week, a member of the Jamaica Constabulary Force Orville Taylor (JCF) was involved in a motor vehicle crash, which took his life. His colleagues in the Accidents, Investigation and Reconstruction Division Unit (AIRU) of the Public Safety and Traffic Enforcement Branch (PSTEB) will determine what the factors leading to the collision were. Every single life matters and there is nothing more special about the life of a police officer who is involved in an incident, in his personal private vehicle. All major crashes under the Road Traffic Act have to be investigated by the AIRU.
Similarly, all police officers and units have a common law and statutory duty in the event that members of the public need assistance in the prevention of crime and, of course, the preservation of life, in emergency situations.
The JCF is a national service and should have reasonable access to all parts of the country in pursuance of these objectives. Case law is pretty clear that police officers have the authority to ‘encroach’ on private property in circumstances where there is probable cause. Thus, if a criminal suspect is attempting to evade arrest, and hurdles over a gate; assuming that the dogs don’t make a meal of him first, then the agents of Babylon are free to go after him. Imagine a scenario where criminal elements shoot up an enterprise, abduct its proprietor, stuff her in the trunk and proceed along the toll road.
They pay their toll; police officers from the nearest geographical jump into their uniforms, strap on their firearms leaving their wallets and give chase. Or less dramatically, the scene involving the constable is replicated, when the officers from PSTEB are not on duty.
AGREEMENT OR UNDERSTANDING
Our Toll Authority has an agreement or understanding with the JCF that allows PSTEB officers access to the toll highways in order to do traffic enforcement. Doubtless, this is important police work, because of the high carnage on the Jamaican roads. Last year we had 482 fatalities. Moreover, many a criminal has been caught, and multiple murderers have been blue bagged by the erstwhile Special Constabulary in speed and other traffic stops.
A controversy has been raging since the incident about the time the police were finally given access by the toll front-line workers, and it appears that the truth must have also been another casualty. Even if the time difference is counted in Jamaican currency, the gap between the various reports cannot be explained. Somehow, in the mass debate among different mouth organs of the state the critical point was missed. It really does not matter if the nonPSTEB officers had a two or 30-minute impediment which had to be later on resolved by the toll plaza employees, who work on the ‘hate line’. All that is needed for an emergency occurrence to become a disaster or catastrophe is a few milliseconds.
This is why certain vehicles are designated ‘emergency’. Thus, when they are en route to or from a critical location, nothing should delay them; period.
One is fully aware of the potential for abuse or the high user costs the constabulary could face, if its officers, even in marked vehicles in emergency mode, can move untrammelled along the tolled thoroughfares. However, that is why there are checks and balances. Proper auditing can easily recoup funds from the salaries of officers who cannot explain why they traverse the highways so frequently or why the flashing lights were deployed. Truth is, the life of a single Jamaican resident is worth infinitely more than lost revenue to any owner of the toll road. Unless I am mistaken, there is nothing in our charter of rights regarding the collection of toll fees. There is, however, a constitutional right to life.
Our ministers of transport ought to have introduced regulations since the toll roads opened years ago. More so, after the newest north-south leg.
POLICE LIVES MATTER
At the back of my mind is a chant that police lives matter. Perception is both a friend and enemy, but it certainly does not help that the board of the toll authority, with the mandate to make recommendations to the minister, appears nonchalant or even derelict. It bothers me deeply that one of its members is a former very senior member of the House of Babylon.
And it gets worse. Someone needs to explain how the chairman of the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) finds himself in a compromising position of having to report to a government minister. The ‘I’ in INDECOM is not for decoration. Our independent commissioner reports to Parliament; not even the prime minister. By any standard, this senior attorney must know that this is either a real, potential or perceived conflict of interest. Trust me, my work at the University of the West Indies has turned me into an expert in this area.
That the transport minister and Toll Authority have dropped the ball is bad enough. Its Chairman Hugh Faulkner, knowing the grand narrative of INDECOM being anti-police, cannot be so naïve not to understand that his chairmanship potentially brings INDECOM into disrepute. In both cases he has dropped the ball and, doubtless, could easily cause disaffection among the constabulary, although maybe not to the extent as outlined under Section 69 of the Constabulary Force Act.
Should I tell him; or will Hugh?