$3b owed in outstanding traffic tickets
Published:Thursday | February 10, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Edmond Campbell, Senior Staff Reporter
MOTORISTS WHO have failed to pay traffic fines over an extended period owe the Government a sum total of $3 billion.
Prime Minister Bruce Golding told Parliament yesterday that the Inland Revenue Department had not received payment for about one million outstanding traffic tickets.
However, the Government is introducing new measures to crack down on drivers who accumulate 14 demerit points and should lose their licences as well as those who evade the payment of fines.
Golding said the Government had introduced a new integrated traffic-ticketing system in seven parishes with a full roll-out expected in the coming months.
"We now have an integrated system where the moment the ticket is issued, it is registered in that database. We have servers that download it to the courts' offices in seven parishes so far," he said.
The system, which was introduced in mid-November last year, had already issued 97,609 tickets by January 26 this year. Of that number, 40,065 have been paid, while some outstanding tickets from the total issued have not yet expired for payment.
At the same time, the traffic police will soon be armed with hand-held ticketing machines.
"If you issue a ticket now, by the time you get to the tax office it is there on the system."
Detailed record
The prime minister said Illuminat Jamaica Limited, which had been contracted to supply the devices, was expected to make a delivery soon.
The new system will also be able to capture all data relating to a person's driver's licence. It will match receipts against tickets, manage demerit points, report on paid tickets, manage warrants and record disposition of court cases.
"The good thing about the system is that it not only brings everything together but you can get that (data) immediately," Golding said.
The prime minister also announced that a new Road Traffic Act has been drafted.
He said there were plans to bring that bill to Parliament and pass the measure before the House prorogues in March.