TTPS cracks down with 84,000 traffic tickets in 10 months

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is­sued 84,263 traf­fic tick­ets be­tween Jan­u­ary 1 and No­vem­ber 3 this year, with breach­ing traf­fic signs, fail­ing to wear seat­belts and dri­ving with­out a valid ve­hi­cle in­spec­tion cer­tifi­cate top­ping the list of of­fences.

Ac­cord­ing to fig­ures re­leased by the TTPS Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch at a news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, the num­ber of tick­ets is­sued was down 26 per cent com­pared with the 114,447 record­ed dur­ing the same pe­ri­od in 2025.

Act­ing In­spec­tor Jesse Jit­mans­ingh said breach­ing traf­fic signs was the most com­mon of­fence, ac­count­ing for 17,280 tick­ets.

This was fol­lowed by fail­ure to wear seat­belts, with 12,409 tick­ets, and dri­ving a ve­hi­cle with­out a valid in­spec­tion cer­tifi­cate, with 10,363.

The oth­er lead­ing of­fences were us­ing a mo­bile phone while dri­ving, with 6,637 tick­ets; il­le­gal win­dow tint, 4,895; dri­ving with­out valid in­sur­ance, 4,795; and dri­ving at an in­ac­ces­si­ble speed, 4,190.

Im­prop­er over­tak­ing ac­count­ed for 2,696 tick­ets, while 2,507 were is­sued for de­fec­tive tyres and 2,454 for fail­ing to com­ply with traf­fic sig­nals.

Jit­mans­ingh said the fig­ures were gath­ered through the TTPS’ UTURN sys­tem.

De­spite the de­crease in traf­fic vi­o­la­tions de­tect­ed, the po­lice al­so re­port­ed a re­duc­tion in fa­tal road traf­fic ac­ci­dents and deaths.

Be­tween Jan­u­ary 1 and No­vem­ber 3, there were 71 fa­tal road traf­fic ac­ci­dents, com­pared with 91 dur­ing the same pe­ri­od last year, rep­re­sent­ing a 22 per cent de­crease.

The num­ber of peo­ple killed fell from 102 in 2025 to 74 this year, a 27 per cent re­duc­tion.

Pas­sen­gers record­ed the largest de­crease in fa­tal­i­ties, falling from 28 last year to eight this year, a 71 per cent re­duc­tion. The num­ber of dri­vers killed de­clined from 28 to 23, while pedes­tri­an deaths fell from 35 to 32.

There was no change in the num­ber of ped­al cy­clists killed, with three record­ed in both pe­ri­ods. Mo­tor­cy­cle fa­tal­i­ties al­so re­mained at sev­en, while one loader was killed in each pe­ri­od.

The fig­ures al­so showed a sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ment along the na­tion’s high­ways, where fa­tal ac­ci­dents fell from 41 to 22, a 46 per cent de­crease. Deaths along the high­ways de­clined from 49 to 24, rep­re­sent­ing a 51 per cent re­duc­tion.

Act­ing Su­per­in­ten­dent Mar­tin said the Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch had set a tar­get of re­duc­ing road traf­fic ac­ci­dents and fa­tal­i­ties by five per cent, but had record­ed a 27 per cent re­duc­tion in road deaths.

He cred­it­ed the im­prove­ment to in­creased en­force­ment and co­op­er­a­tion from mem­bers of the pub­lic.

Mar­tin said of­fi­cers had al­so in­ten­si­fied pre­ci­sion pa­trols in ar­eas and dur­ing pe­ri­ods iden­ti­fied as hav­ing a high­er risk of fa­tal ac­ci­dents.

He iden­ti­fied Tues­day af­ter­noons, from around 5 pm, through to Sun­day morn­ings, around 9 am, as pe­ri­ods when road fa­tal­i­ties tend­ed to in­crease.

Sergeant Brent Bat­son, co­or­di­na­tor of the Po­lice Strate­gic Road Safe­ty Project, said the down­ward trend was the re­sult of a mul­ti-pronged ap­proach in­volv­ing en­force­ment, ed­u­ca­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istries of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion, and Works and In­fra­struc­ture.

Bat­son al­so ex­pressed con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly of a per­son killed in a road traf­fic ac­ci­dent yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing the cir­cu­la­tion of graph­ic footage of the in­ci­dent on so­cial me­dia.

He re­mind­ed mo­torists that un­safe road use could have trag­ic con­se­quences and urged them to obey speed lim­its, en­sure they had sober dri­vers, wear seat­belts and keep their ve­hi­cles road­wor­thy.

As the coun­try en­ters the fi­nal two months of the year, Bat­son said the TTPS hoped there would be no fur­ther loss of life on the na­tion’s roads.