POWELL

Glenroy Sinclair, Assignment Coordinator

The non-availability of a data bank to store vital information is impacting on the efforts of the police to apprehend over 70,000 motorists with outstanding traffic tickets.

"We believe that some of these motorists are people whose licences should have been suspended based on points accumulated, but they are still out there driving on the streets," Senior Superintendent Ealan Powell told The Gleaner yesterday.

An example of this is the minibus driver who was involved in Tuesday's fatal motor vehicle crash along the Washington Boulevard, which claimed the lives of two persons, including a 10 year-old girl.

"There were warrants out for his arrest. He was someone who was always under the microscope of the police," said SSP Powell, head of the Police Traffic Division.

In an attempt to deal with the problem, SSP Powell said a special unit within the Police Traffic Division has been tracking these motorists with outstanding tickets.

"They have been arresting between 40 and 50 people on a weekly basis," the senior officer disclosed.

Influential persons

He said he will be looking into allegations that motorists, instead of paying a fine, are instead passing on tickets to "influential persons" for them to be removed from the system.

The high-tech Police Traffic Ticketing System introduced by the Govern-ment three years ago has not lived up to expectation, according to Mr. Powell. It was supposed to have been an improvement on the system first introduced in 1994. The police are now in the process of installing another system, which is more reliable.

"This new system is being installed by a local company and when it is completed traffic patrols will be equipped with computers while out on the streets," SSP Powell told The Gleaner.

glenroy.sinclair@gleanerjm.com