Traffic ticket crackdown
Police promise ‘very aggressive’ drive to execute traffic violation-related warrants
Published:Monday | January 6, 2025 | 12:10 AMLivern Barrett/Senior Staff Reporter
The police have approximately 30,000 arrest warrants for motorists who have ignored tickets issued for traffic violations, a senior official has disclosed.
Already, the police have embarked on a “very aggressive” national drive to have them executed, according to Assistant Commissioner of Police Gary McKenzie, head of the Public Safety and Traffic Enforcement Branch (PSTEB).
The warrants resulted from more than one million traffic tickets issued by the police since the new Road Traffic Act (RTA) came into effect in February 2023.
The police issued 541,656 traffic tickets last year, including 78,392 for excessive speeding, according to data compiled by PSTEB.
Last year, 5,280 arrest warrants – the highest in five years – were executed on motorists who ignored traffic tickets, but McKenzie said the PSTEB would be pushing this year for a minimum 100 per cent increase in that number.
Among the two main initiatives the police will rely on is the creation of specialised teams to execute arrest warrants, he disclosed.
The other is Traffic Thursdays, a weekly publication, via social media, of the names of 100 motorists for whom arrest warrants have been issued.
“For us to execute over 5,000 warrants ... if you divide that by 12, you will recognise that it was quite a bit of persons who got arrested on warrants per month,” McKenzie told The Gleaner on Saturday.
“But we really want to double that figure come 2025. To double would really be very mild, but that is the minimum. So what it means is that we have to improve the way we execute [by] up to over 500 per cent.”
The PSTEB commander suggested, too, that government ministries, departments, and agencies should be required to check if citizens have outstanding warrants before allowing them to conduct any transaction,
Further, he said the efforts of the police would be bolstered by more “robust” enforcement of a legislative provision that blocks motorists from renewing their driver’s licence or vehicle registration if they have outstanding tickets.
“We expect that when people go to renew their licences, ITA would help us, through TAJ, to say to these persons ‘Okay, you have these warrants outstanding and you need to clear them before we can allow you to drive’,” said McKenzie, making reference to the Island Traffic Authority and Tax Administration Jamaica.
Jamaica recorded a 14 per cent dip in the number of people killed in motor vehicle crashes last year, and road-safety advocates believe the improved police traffic ticketing system was a major contributory factor.
A total of 364 people died on the country’s roadways in 2024, the lowest in seven years, according to official data.
Jamaica recorded over 400 road deaths for each calendar year from 2019 to 2023, including the historic 488 deaths in 2022.
Dr Lucien Jones, vice-chairman of the National Road Safety Council (NRSC), believes that the over half a million tickets issued last year has helped to impact driver behaviour on the roadways.
“In the absence of any other targeted, concentrated, and effective intervention, the one thing that stands out is the consequences of the new Road Traffic Act,” Jones told The Gleaner on Saturday.
“The increased fines and the improvement in the ticketing system has allowed for more efficient execution and distribution of warrants, which I believe is affecting driver behaviour, which is driving down the numbers.”