DRIVERS who love to chat and text, beware! a new law is coming soon.
Minister of Transport and Works John Boyce told the DAILY NATION that the new Road Traffic Amendment Act should soon be ready and would address several pertinent issues including vending on the highways.
“We are about to launch the Road Traffic (Amendment) Act which will be a 2011 version. That was passed in Parliament in 2007 but it went to a select committee and there were some issues related to it. So we are now tidying up the final draft of that and we expect by the end of March that that will be ready and having the stakeholders make comment, have it ready for Parliament.
“It will address a number of issues. Not only things like the breathalyser and the non-use of cellphones while driving, but it will also address the demerit points system to try to make it more compatible with the police objective. Vending on our highways is a growing problem and, again, we are going to be addressing that. Once that is in place, I believe we will have a lot more effective ways of dealing with the road traffic,” he said.
Boyce said he was always concerned about the number of road deaths and his ministry was constantly working to improve the entire road network.
“One of the things we have been talking about recently is the launch of our National Council for Road
Safety which is a new umbrella organisation for all the road safety organisations in Barbados and being represented at the highest level of Government. Our plan is that the Prime Minister [Freundel Stuart] will chair this council or delegate to one of his ministers to do so.
“This is our response to the United Nations Declaration of Road Safety that will start in 2011, and goes until 2020 and the objective is to reduce road deaths and accidents by 50 per cent worldwide. I think Barbados averages some 25 road deaths per year with some peaks as high as 30,” said Boyce.
The minister said he believed road accidents could be avoided but one must always “commit to the question of safety”.
