PSVs ‘to get own legal aid’

Public service vehicle operators who have been seeking legal assistance could soon be getting access to volunteer attorneys as the Alliance Owners of Public Transport (AOPT) Wednesday announced its intention to start a legal clinic for its members.

AOPT Director Craig Banfield made the announcement as he and fellow AOPT members accepted gas coupons from Rubis Fontabelle. The gesture is intended to assist PSV operators who have been experiencing reduced income during the COVID-19 crisis.

Banfield told journalists the clinic would be the result of calls from the AOPT’s membership for some form of legal aid.

He said: “We have seen in the paper during COVID-19 as well as previously, we see a lot of our members going before the law courts. As such, a lot of our members have asked for assistance in legal matters, and we are glad to announce today that our association shall be setting up a legal clinic to assist those members of the public service vehicle fraternity, in any legal matters.

“How the legal clinic is going to work is that… two to three days a week, we are going to have various amounts of lawyers who are well-versed in all areas of law, and they have volunteered their services during this time period to take legal questions and any queries that anyone feels that they need at this particular point in time. As such, if a legal representation in court is needed, we also are willing to go that extra step, but before that happens, we want to try to rectify and solve all matters as soon as possible.”

The legal clinic will also be opened to the general public Banfield told reporters, promising to release more details about the process in the days leading up to the launch.

The AOPT is also planning to begin talks with the Ministry of Transport soon, to discuss a ticketing system for PSV operators who are asked to pay fines when they are caught committing infractions, Banfield said. The AOPT is seeking to speed up the process of operators clearing these fines and buy time before having to face law courts already logjammed with traffic cases.

Banfield said: “Our PSV operators that encounter reports from police of various infractions, [such as] maybe being off route, can have a set fee, that is to be determined, whereby instead of going to court and wasting time, and also easing up the backlog of the court system, the police would probably issue a ticket to you, and you go to the court within 48 hours to make the recusant payment.

“If 48 hours pass and the operator has not paid the fine, then a summons will be issued and you will have to go to court.”

Banfield said that such an arrangement would not be new for Barbados, suggesting that the Road Traffic Act already makes provision for such an arrangement.

He explained: “As we see, the Road Traffic Act Section 79 does speak about a numeric point system which the government has never introduced in Barbados as yet, which is similar to the ticketing system we are talking about.

“The numeric system works a little differently whereby you have a point system on your licence, and this would not only relate to just PSVs but also to private and commercial vehicles, and as infractions occur, then you would reduce the amount of points that is in Schedule 6 of the Road Traffic Act – for example going off route would be four points, which would then be deducted from the overall total of points that is allocated on an individual’s licence plate.”