Attorney General Wilfred Abrahams on Wednesday called for all public service vehicles (PSVs) to be equipped with mandatory dashcams and GPS tracking, arguing that stronger regulation is now needed to tackle lawlessness and improve safety on Barbados’ roads.
In the House of Assembly debate on the Budget, Abrahams argued that while the government has made repeated attempts to reform the PSV industry through engagement and collaboration, stronger measures are now required.
“I think dashcams and GPS should be mandatory for PSVs. Mandatory,” the Christ Church MP asserted, pointing to ongoing concerns about violence, indiscipline and dangerous practices on the nation’s roads.
Abrahams noted that the issue of lawlessness within the sector could no longer be ignored, particularly as Barbados grapples with wider concerns about crime and public safety.
“The hot topic is violence and criminality and trying to get Barbados back to what we know it’s supposed to be. We can’t ignore the sector that seems to perpetuate a philosophy that the laws do not apply to us,” he said.
The Mia Mottley administration had already exhausted multiple avenues in its attempts to bring order to the sector, including dialogue, education and negotiation, said the attorney general.
“We have talked about it for a long time. We have tried to encourage, we’ve tried to engage, we’ve tried to educate, we’ve tried to negotiate. Nobody can now say that the government has not bent over backwards to meet the PSV sector where it is.”
But he indicated that the time had come to move beyond persuasion and introduce firm regulatory requirements.
“I think we need now to take one further step. It is now at the point where it should be a requirement that they have the dashcams in facing forward [and] facing back, and that they [have] GPS,” he said.
According to Abrahams, such systems would enhance oversight by ensuring that PSV operators are held accountable throughout their routes.
“They have routes to run. They must be accountable for the persons they have in that van from the time they leave on their route to the time that they come back,” he added.
While making clear that he was not seeking to assign blame, Abrahams maintained that the proposed measures were necessary given the limitations of previous efforts.
“I am not laying blame… up to this point in time, we have tried. You don’t try to get by force what you can get by agreement,” he said, stressing that the sector had now reached a stage where mandatory compliance was warranted.
(SB)
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