Dear Editor,
I would like to register my discomfort with the pronouncements made by Senior Superintendent Radcliffe Lewis after the Traffic Ticket Amnesty ended on December 31, 2012.
The Senior Superintendent declared that motorists who received tickets after September 21, 2010 (outside of the period of the amnesty), and have not paid these fines, would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
I would like to remind the Senior Superintendent that it has become abundantly clear that the existing database for recording traffic offences and payments for outstanding tickets, whether paid through the tax offices or through the islands courts, is teeming with errors.
It is unreasonable to believe that the same database that provided inaccurate information for traffic offences committed for periods under the amnesty would magically give accurate information on which the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) can rely. As such, there is a high probability that innocent motorists would be incarcerated and brought to the courts for an offence which was (1) cleared up within the stipulated time or (2) not actually committed by the said motorist.
It is my view that this talk of prosecution should be tempered and the entire traffic ticket database cleaned prior to any enforcement action by the JCF.
Peter James
pj_ranks@yahoo.com
Unhappy with remarks by SSP Lewis
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I would like to register my discomfort with the pronouncements made by Senior Superintendent Radcliffe Lewis after the Traffic Ticket Amnesty ended on December 31, 2012.
The Senior Superintendent declared that motorists who received tickets after September 21, 2010 (outside of the period of the amnesty), and have not paid these fines, would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
I would like to remind the Senior Superintendent that it has become abundantly clear that the existing database for recording traffic offences and payments for outstanding tickets, whether paid through the tax offices or through the islands courts, is teeming with errors.
It is unreasonable to believe that the same database that provided inaccurate information for traffic offences committed for periods under the amnesty would magically give accurate information on which the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) can rely. As such, there is a high probability that innocent motorists would be incarcerated and brought to the courts for an offence which was (1) cleared up within the stipulated time or (2) not actually committed by the said motorist.
It is my view that this talk of prosecution should be tempered and the entire traffic ticket database cleaned prior to any enforcement action by the JCF.
Peter James
pj_ranks@yahoo.com
Unhappy with remarks by SSP Lewis
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