THE EDITOR, Sir:
THIS IS just an idea for the Most Honorable Prime Minister of Jamaica and the other 'powers that be'.
1. Set a target of ten thousand young people, ages 17-25, both males and females, to be recruited and trained as traffic wardens. They will be deployed across the island, on a two-shift basis, 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 10 p.m., Mondays to Sundays.
2. The island will be zoned and the traffic wardens deployed to each zone will be under the command of a cadre of senior and experienced traffic police officers.
3. Recruit two thousand of the total number of applicants from the correctional institutions, between the relevant ages, who are (a) First offenders and (b) are incarcerated for minor offences. Those who qualify for the wardens service will be paroled for the rest of their sentence. On completion of their period of parole in the warden's service, if they perform to the standard set for the traffic wardens service, and they wish to, or are prepared to continue in the service for another five years, then they would be granted a pardon for their conviction by the state, on the successful completion of the stated five-year period of service.
4. After completion of their training and acceptance into the traffic wardens service, each recruit will be provided with an adequate set of uniforms, appropriate for the wardens service, badges, walkie-talkie, radios, etc.
5. All traffic wardens will be on foot patrol in their allocated zones. They will not be required to chase down errant motorists, but relay the vehicle licence plate number, colour of vehicle and offence observed to the other wardens in the direction to which the motorist heads.
6. Amend and/or upgrade the traffic ticketing law and collection staff installed the following:
The ticketing system to be computerised and collection staff installed to manage the system.
Motorists who are ticketed must be able to pay fines, where a court appearance is not initially required, at any Government post office, tax office or authorised bill collection agencies.
Only those motorists issued with traffic summons, or if they wish to contest the reasons for receiving a traffic ticket, will be required to attend traffic court. 7. The traffic wardens must be invested with some discretionary power to warn those motorists who have committed a traffic infraction, not resulting in an accident, and who obey the warden to stop. This feature is designed as an educational process for the motorists so warned.
8. Wherever it is feasible, the managers of the wardens programme should deploy the wardens in the zones closest to the areas in which they live, in order to reduce the need for travelling long distances to their patrol zones and therefore alleviate the cost of their accommodation when they are off duty. 9. The foregoing programme could achieve the following benefits for the country.
Restore the motoring public to the proper use of the nation's roadways, instead of the current lawless and indisciplined use, resulting in many dangerous situations and major accidents, with the resultant loss of life, personal injury and the cost to the nation.
b) Elimination of the menace to motorists, approaching and waiting at traffic lights and stop signs, constituted by
the original windscreen washer boys
who are now grown and fierce men
the steady influx of itinerant vendors
both males and females and
a new and emerging crop of windscreen
washer boys,
on the spot instructions to pedestrians
in the proper use of sidewalks and the
crossing of roads.
the trained wardens would be evaluated
periodically and therefore could provide
a steady source of recruits for the
Jamaica Constabulary Force, generate a steady flow of revenue in the form of ticketed fines for the Government coffers.
The discipline, team work and spirit, among the wardens and their interpersonal relationship, developed in dealing with people who drive motor vehicles on the roads and pedestrians who walk along, in or across the roads, should create a cadre of Jamaicans who will see opportunities to become upwardly mobile.
They can become candidates for employment in Government institutions and the private sector and can go on to tertiary education. This upward mobility of the wardens would create vacancies for new applicants to the Traffic Warden Service.
I am, etc.,
FITZ CASSERLY
Arcadia, Constant Spring PO
Kingston 8
