The new Road Traffic Act is even closer to becoming a reality, as Minister of Transport and Works, Michael Lashley is expected pilot the Bill in the House of Assembly today.
This is the first step, the Minister told The Barbados Advocate yesterday morning, in making the much anticipated and long awaited amendments to the existing Act the law of the land. Moreover, Minister Lashley contending that the legislation is “quite comprehensive”, said that they have taken most, if not all of the proposals put forward by various interest groups into consideration, as steps were taken to amend the Act. Among the areas that the legislation, once passed will address, is the provision of disabled parking and a ban on drink driving, putting the much anticipated breathalyser testing on the statute books.
“For the first time in the history of Barbados, designated disabled parking will have the force of law and we will be cracking down on cellphone use while driving and be introducing breathalyser. Under the new Act persons will not be permitted to use cellphones while driving unless in hands-free mode,” he said.
Lashley added, “This Bill shows that we are seriously looking at ensuring safety on our roads and ensuring that there is full compliance with the road traffic laws of Barbados.”
Minister Lashley’s comments came as he said that the intention is to have the legislation debated in the Upper House as soon as possible, passed there and then proclaimed. He said that they are hoping this process takes no more than a few weeks.
Meanwhile, speaking to The Barbados Advocate yesterday afternoon, President of the Barbados Council for the Disabled (BCD), Maria Holder Small said the BCD was pleased that the Bill is up for debate on today’s Order Paper, and that the provision for disabled parking has been included. Her comments came as she indicated that BCD intends to have a contingent in the House of Assembly today to watch the debate.
“It is a very important piece of legislation that will be passed hopefully tomorrow. It symbolises a kind of independence for persons with disabilities and it is long awaited. So we are extremely grateful and thankful that it is coming to Parliament,” she stated.
The BCD president added, “People think of persons with wheel chair using disabled parking, but a lot of the times it is not only persons using wheel chairs that use the parking spots. We have the elderly, persons with pacemakers, and we have so many persons with NCDCs now and their health is not like before, and therefore these parking spaces are for persons who need them and not persons who are just feeling lazy and don’t feel like walking”.
For the last few years the BCD has been garnering support for their petition dubbed ‘Be Kind, Respect the Sign’, where they were asking for the law to be amended to ensure that anyone who violated the use of those parking spots would be liable to a fine. She indicated that they had been able to get more than 12,000 signatures in support of their cause.
“The fee should be a deterrent. This is what happens with us, if it is not law nobody will respect the sign. But how about when it becomes law, like seat belts? People would have fussed about that, but at the end of the day we all put on our seatbelts when we are in a moving vehicle, because we know it is law. There are some persons that need the law to tell them they really should not be parking there,” Holder Small said. (JRT)