TTPS deploys new laser speed guns during UN Road Safety Week

New laser speed en­force­ment de­vices ca­pa­ble of de­tect­ing speed­ing mo­torists from in­side po­lice ve­hi­cles were launched by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice on Tues­day, as part of ac­tiv­i­ties mark­ing the end of Unit­ed Na­tions Road Safe­ty Week.

The launch took place at the Au­drey Jef­fers High­way lay­by, where Road Safe­ty Co­or­di­na­tor for the TTPS, Sergeant Brent Bat­son, said the new Li­dar de­vices are ex­pect­ed to strength­en en­force­ment ef­forts along high­ways and road­ways across the coun­try.

Sergeant Bat­son said the up­grad­ed tech­nol­o­gy al­lows of­fi­cers to iden­ti­fy speed­ing ve­hi­cles and cap­ture im­ages of reg­is­tra­tion plates at night, when many speed­ing of­fences oc­cur.

Sgt Bat­son urged mo­torists to con­sid­er the safe­ty of pas­sen­gers, pedes­tri­ans and oth­er road users be­fore en­gag­ing in dan­ger­ous dri­ving prac­tices.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro said there has been a 42 per cent re­duc­tion in fa­tal road traf­fic ac­ci­dents for 2026 com­pared with the same pe­ri­od last year.

CoP Gue­var­ro al­so re­port­ed a 51 per cent de­crease in over­all road traf­fic ac­ci­dents over the same pe­ri­od.

He said mo­torists ap­peared to have re­spond­ed to warn­ings and en­force­ment ini­tia­tives by ad­just­ing their dri­ving be­hav­iour.

Min­is­ter of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion, Sen­a­tor Eli Za­k­our, said the de­vices form part of the Gov­ern­ment’s broad­er na­tion­al road safe­ty strat­e­gy aimed at re­duc­ing speed­ing and en­cour­ag­ing safer dri­ving habits.

Min­is­ter Za­k­our said the tech­nol­o­gy would act as a de­ter­rent to mo­torists who con­tin­ue to vi­o­late speed lim­its and would sup­port ef­forts to build re­spon­si­bil­i­ty among dri­vers.

Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er Clive Clarke and Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Lin­coln Daly of the Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch al­so at­tend­ed the launch.

The TTPS said the in­tro­duc­tion of the new de­vices co­in­cid­ed with the fi­nal day of Unit­ed Na­tions Road Safe­ty Week ob­ser­vances.

Dur­ing the week, the po­lice ser­vice con­duct­ed road safe­ty cam­paigns and aware­ness ini­tia­tives fo­cused on re­spon­si­ble road use through so­cial and tra­di­tion­al me­dia plat­forms.