New Features To Be Placed On A Driver’s Licence

The Ministry of Transport and Mining will be introducing new security features on a driver’s licence to eliminate fraud.

Speaking in the House of Representatives recently, Portfolio Minister, Hon. Robert Montague, said the new security features will be facilitated under the regulations of the new Road Traffic Act.

“Right now, people are walking up and down with bogus driver’s licences, and it is hard to distinguish between the bogus and the real. For example, a gentleman turned up in Spanish Town and was asked for his driver’s licence and he produced a driver’s licence in the name of a very colourful Senior Superintendent of Police – the full name,” the Minister noted.

Mr. Montague pointed out that the new regulations under the Road Traffic Act will also allow for digitalised tests and periodic retesting.

“Right now, you go into an examination depot and do the test, a clerk takes it, corrects it and tells you if you pass or fail. You don’t get a chance to see the document itself. What we are moving to do is digitise it. Once you are onscreen and online, as soon as you pass it will be centralised, so that no local person in a depot would be able to change the scores or interfere with it…; it will be centrally dealt with,” he said.

Mr. Montague said the regulations under the Act are being finalised. “Although this process is long and people have been waiting, it is the normal legislative process that we have to pay attention to, so that we don’t keep coming here to amend what we have just passed,” he said.

He encouraged Jamaicans to exercise patience “while we get it right”.

In the meantime Mr. Montague said aspects of the Road Traffic Act have been gazetted and are enforced, including those that establish the Island Traffic Authority as the lead implementing agency.

“However, some sections in the old Act, once they are taken off the books, all the sections will go and that would affect the Transport Authority Act, so we are moving now as part of the process to move the sections that relate to the Transport Authority,” he said.

The new Road Traffic Bill establishes new offences, as well as provide increased penalties for breaches.