Ministry clarifies claim on defensive driving and insurance

The Min­istry of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion has ad­dressed claims cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia and oth­er plat­forms about fines and in­sur­ance re­quire­ments linked to de­fen­sive dri­ving cours­es.

The min­istry said there is no $10,000 fine im­posed on per­sons un­der the age of 25 for fail­ing to com­plete a de­fen­sive dri­ving course in or­der to ob­tain mo­tor ve­hi­cle in­sur­ance.

The min­istry stat­ed that there is no pro­vi­sion in the laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go that re­quires per­sons un­der 25 to com­plete a de­fen­sive dri­ving course as a con­di­tion for ob­tain­ing or main­tain­ing mo­tor ve­hi­cle in­sur­ance. This in­cludes the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act and its sub­sidiary leg­is­la­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the min­istry, claims sug­gest­ing that in­sur­ance cov­er­age is de­pen­dent on com­ple­tion of such a course for per­sons in that age group are not sup­port­ed by ex­ist­ing law.

The min­istry said the in­for­ma­tion be­ing shared does not re­flect cur­rent le­gal re­quire­ments and should not be treat­ed as of­fi­cial guid­ance.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic were ad­vised to ver­i­fy in­for­ma­tion be­fore ac­cept­ing or shar­ing it. The min­istry en­cour­aged re­liance on of­fi­cial Gov­ern­ment com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels for in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to trans­port pol­i­cy, road traf­fic reg­u­la­tions and in­sur­ance re­quire­ments.

The state­ment forms part of ef­forts by the min­istry to ad­dress claims in the pub­lic do­main that may cause con­fu­sion about le­gal oblig­a­tions for mo­torists and in­sur­ance hold­ers.

The min­istry said fur­ther up­dates on trans­port mat­ters will be is­sued through of­fi­cial chan­nels as re­quired.