Cops write over 100 tickets in week 1 of clampdown
(CNS): In the first week of its Christmas clampdown on bad driving the RCIPS said that 108 tickets had been issued for a range of offences and six people have already been arrested for driving under the influence. Operation Rotate which started on 22 November until January is designed to challenge what police describe as the poor standard of driving in Cayman. The campaign came in the wake of the 6th fatality on Cayman’s roads and Inspector Adrian Barnett of the RCIPS Traffic Management Department said people had to realise that their actions have consequences. If bad driving wasn’t addressed more families would be burying loved ones as a result of avoidable deaths on the roads he added.
Police revealed that between 22 and 29 November officers set up 18 road blocks and conducted 15 stop and searches. Six of the DUI arrests came after 16 breath tests were taken by drivers.
At the start of the campaign Barnett said, “The fact is that drinking and driving and speeding cost lives…Too many people still take chances with their own safety and the lives of others on our roads by getting behind the wheel of a car when they are drunk, using our roads as race tracks or, in many cases, a combination of both.”
Of the more than 100 tickets issued 40 were for speeding offences and five people were issued tickets over not wearing seatbelts. Two offenders were also arrested for Driving Whilst Disqualified and during the first week there were 23 different road accidents reported.
“The driving behaviour we see day after day in this country needs to be challenged head-on. If we do not collectively challenge it the death and destruction on our roads will continue and more families will have to go through the heartache of burying their loved ones,” Barnett added.
The police said that the crackdown will include high visibility patrols, static road checks, unmarked vehicles, radar stops and targeted operations to discourage and detect those who drink and drive, or engage in other inconsiderate or illegal road activities.
Category: Local News
It is sad that the Police feel that their regular paid traffic duties are beneath them, and feel compelled to warn the recidivists that they are about to start about their duties again. What are the traffic police doing the rest of the year? Haven’t Police taken an oath to "clamp down" every hour they are in uniform?
We would all be safer if they were out in public going about the "clamping down" every day, and especially after dark.
Dear RCIP
PLEASE WRITE SOME TICKETS FOR LITTERING UP Cayman! A tourist destination. Tourists were commenting on it yesterday and they were shocked at the difference in 10 years what has happened to this country!The last time they were here. They said the Island is FOR SALE! and that GARBAGE IS EVERYWHERE! They asked one cab driver what happened?
The fact that none of the MLA’s not even the premier MInister for Tourism has taken public littering with garbage from one end of the island to the other seriously. One would think the Premier would be the first one to push for legislation to keep CAYMAN CLEAN!
What a mentality we have elected! Banana Republic to the bone!
Last night at around 11:30pm while driving southbound on south church street towards George Town, an unmarked brown sedan with "police lights" passed myself and another car in excess of 75mph in the 25 mph zone. No siren on, just lights. They went around the blind corner too hot and would up in the right lane and narrowly avoided a head on with a bus, probably carrying tourists back to their hotel from Casanovas or Bacchus. By the total disregard for the laws of inertia and public safety, I can’t tell if that was a real Police car or a bad guy getaway car with lights?
CNS: "108 tickets had been issued for a range of offences and six people have already been arrested for driving under the influence."
One may say, a great accomplishment by the Police. However, the statistics show to us that more people are breaking the law. It would be interesting to see a study conducted as to why more and more people are choosing to break the law. Wouldn’t it be link to the economy and stress? Seriously, do people just wake up one day and decide to break the law out of fun; or, are there factors involved that gradually pressure them to break the law?
Not outrightly saying that it is the failing economy to blame, but I am still not satisfied with this governments response to crime. I hoping to see more empathy and one-on-one interaction with the people.
The statistics show that more people are being caught breaking the law.
Which means there are alot more people who are NOT caught breaking the law. But my main concerns is –
What is causing people to break the law???
Why not look into that and try to fix that… instead of stopping vehicles to write numerous tickets?
The reason is not that more people are breaking the law, it just seems that way because the traffic police are actually doing their duties for once. If they maintain this attitude year round people wouldn’t do it for fear of being caught.
If they were to "clamp down" every day and night like they are supposed to do then this would be an everyday / weekly occurrence.
Makes you wonder what it is exactly that they are doing the majority of the time?
Next time you are driving look at the cars that pass you and count the number of people not wearing seatbelts. Or count the number of times cars don’t indicate when turning, or fail to stop at a stop sign. All in contravention of the traffic law but rarely enforced but for christmas time.
Personally, I believe it to be a case of laziness on the part of the police becasue of the paperwork / reports they would end up having to produce if they "clamped down" year round and not just at the end of the year. This is clearly an issue at hand when a large percentage of the police lack basic skills such as reading and writing.
Just because they announce at the end of each year that they are clamping down, and then produce their results to the public (like some kid who just won a race and is proudly showing off their medal) does not mean they are doing a great job, but rather shows the opposite, that they are clearly inefficient in demonstrating and fulfilling the duties that they are paid to perform.
In a regular job / career the employee would be fired for not producing results and fullfilling their duties. But like almost every government department, laziness and no results seems to be the name of the game. Then when a tiny snippet of progress is made everybody ahs drop what their doing and sing the highest praises.
Absolute bollocks.
And when are the police going to realize that they can make some extra cash ticketing people for illegal parking? As far as I know there are double yellow lines down most ofCardinal Ave.
Yet do you notice there is no free parking lot in Town
Entitled much?
When it comes to vehicle insurances and licensing, government should do something to lower their cost. For those who don’t know what a Police State is… we’re in one.
With all the complaints etc I hope everyone is at minimum completing the RCIPS survey, the deadline is onFriday.
Take a few minutes to participate we need to start being a people of action and not solely a nation of talkers and complainers.
http://www.rcips.ky
Do you seriously think the survey makes any sense. At the final analysis, the top ranking officers and the Commissioner of Police are the ones pulling the strings! Don’t be so dumb! Police Service is not Parliament!
Good! I am for one is all for it. People drive like idiots nowadays, especially this time of the year. It is almost like someone flipped a switch and everyone goes crazy!
People need to recognize that there are different dept within the police, so the police who work in the traffic dept are not taking anything away from the crime unit.
The other day I saw that police had finally pulled over one of those taxi busses who drive like maniacs on the road and stop wherever it suits. Now please also focus on those dump truck drivers who drive like there is no tomorrow with no consideration for anyone else on the road, spilling part of their load in each and every curve.
Also, please clamp down on those who drive dangerously, weaving in and out of traffic like they own the streets, switching lanes and almost hitting other cars in the process.
I suggest you follow school busses and fine those idiots who do not think they need to stop when a school bus stops – so many times I have seen children almost getting run over because some moron felt he/she didn’t have the time to stop.
Finally, please just walk the parking lots at various super markets and hand out tickets in respect to cars which have their windows tinted "black"! It boggles the mind that there are so many cars still on the roads who clearly break the law when it comes to tinting windows to a point where you can’t even see whether a human or a horse is the driver!
That’s all!
Hmm, could the answer to the mystery expressed in your statement " …It boggles the mind that there are so many cars still on the roads who clearly break the law when it comes to tinting windows to a point where you can’t even see whether a human or a horse is the driver! " be – a jackass?
Seriously, unless we all work towards the day when respecting and obeying all of Cayman’s laws, including the Constitution, becomes normal behaviour of both leaders and followers, society will continue to reap the bitter harvest of not setting the right examples to train up Cayman’s children in the way they should go and grow. It is not too late – not yet – so let’s get the priorities of our society and country right!
As a Caymanian i am troubled by the comments that I read here. You want the police to catch criminals but not to stop people who are clearly breaking the law. The youth of this country learn about right and wrong by watching their parents – who constantly break the traffic laws of the country. They drive without their lights on at night; they tailgate at high speed, busses overtake in the turn only lanes; cars & motorcycles travel at 50 mph over the speed limit; drive without insurance and sometime without licenses – all of which is againist the law! Children see this and will mimick this behaviour and then believe that if it’s ok to break these laws, it must be ok to break others. This leads to what our readers call "real criminals". The police should continue to ticket everyone that breaks the law; increase the penalties and insure that people know and follow the laws of this country. All of them. To suggest that we let people break some laws because they’re poor is ridiculous, and I’m embarrassed by some of the comments.
Jim, if you came here looking for intellectual dialogue, you came to the wrong place and you most definitely clicked on the wrong article!
I think he is in the right place, because you choose to be here!
I read the comments too, but I think commenters below like "brabley" is more dealing with the high cost of living. Breaking the law is not right, but what happens when the law, which was originally drafted from the people to protect and ensure order, is becoming an oppressive tool to those who have to make ends meet.
I feel at that time, is when our politicians should step in and brainstorm to change or amend certain laws to fit the season of global recession. The poor police have to be the ones who take the frustrations from the public.
In the meantime people get killed, shot at, robbed and beaten up.
But at least the premier and dart are protected, what a relieve and what a country.
Is it me or are they trying to see who can accumulate the most ‘points’ to earn a Christmas bonus???!!!
They should not be ‘clamping down’ just in the month of December! I guess we can be assured that 1 month out of the 12 we will have safer roads.
Good on you Inspector Barnett – thank you for being proactive.. but perhaps you can use this clampdown to teach your very own traffic cops to drive properly – many times your boys/girls are the worst offenders.
Yeah right…
And included in the poor standard of driviing, are folk who are stopped and harassed because they havE problems paying the Department of Licencing or their Insurance Company, the HIGH AND COSTLY FEES THEY IMPOSE!
The officers don’t have anything to do, but to penalized drivers not able to easily afford their legal driving papers. They become almost like tax collectors, standing along the roadside, more for the Insurance companies than for preventing the victim-crimes of robbery and dangerous driving.
SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE WITH THIS BACKWARD SYSTEM, AND THESE HIGH AND UNREASONABLE DRIVING FEES! SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE WITH THE INSURANCE COMPANIES HERE, THAT TAKES MORE AND MORE AWAY FROM THEIR CLIENTS.
Like the United States needing Health Care Reform, Cayman needs Insurance Reform big time! They have made it hard to live and move about on this island. People should be able to have some saving they can put away and can be accumulated into a portion of wealth. But this is impossible when government allows this high fees to exist. Each month, what I make, goes from one hand and leaves the next. There is no portion I have for any recreation.
THAT IS HOW HIGH THE COST OF LIVING IS IN CAYMAN, AND THE BLOATED POLICE FORCE ARE MAKING IT HARDER FOR EVERYONE! INSTEAD OF CATCHING THE CRIMINAL, THEY HAVE BECOME TAX-COLLECTORS SOON TO BE HATED AND DISPISED. PEOPLE WHO ARE WELL-OFF DON’T UNDERSTAND, BECAUSE THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS LIKE TO NEED YOUR TRANSPORT, BUT NO MONEY TO EVEN DRIVE IT FROM HOME TO WORK WITHOUT OFFICERS STOPPING YOU ALONG THE WAY.
Hmmm… I can read between the lines, you are very upset. I must say though, all the thumbs down you are going to get in this forum, alot of people can relate with the things you said.
So you believe its ok to drive without license or insurance? Please dont take this wrong but if you cant afford the car and ALL the responsibility that gos with it than take the bus. I agree our insurance companies should be regulated but until that happens everyone needs to have insurance and a car that is safe to drive on the road.
I see more young Caymanians with expensive cars, living at their parents, but no money for gas. Learn to prioritize.
High licencing? Gov needs the money.
As for finding it difficult to afford insurance, whta happens if you hit and pararlyse a pedestrian while uninsured?
If you can’t afford to keep you r ca on the raod then stat using a push bike like the rest of the world.
Where does this entitlement feeling that you deserve to drive a car you cannot afford come from?
This is all the Police good for, writing tickets. Get them white shits dirty and clean Cayman of all the criminals.. You know most of them, profile, network with the public and pay for information if you have to. Hand go, hand come around here, Target the areas you know them.
In response to okay which one is it going to be…you are right. It seems that we can only have one or the other BUT if the penalties are severe for wreckless operation and UDI ie) Vehicle Confiscation you will find people simmering down real quick and the police can get back to looking for bank robbers
This is not a question of ‘either or’. The Police have to continue doing their jobs in all areas, and the fact is that more people are killed on the roads than in armed robberies. (Though statistics show that you are more likely to be murdered by the person you are sleeping with now, than anyone else.)
Every day I see cars breaking the law visibly and with impunity, with their deep blue headlights, blackened windows, TVs mounted on their visors and jacked-up suspensions, ready to decapitate someone in a head-on collision.
This puts the Police in a very bad light. It’s as if they don’t care, and everyone can see that they don’t care.There might be little connection between the laws of the road and catching armed robbers, but perception is very important, and I do remember that Commissioner Kernohan understood this clearly. Let the law be seen to be imposed.
Isn’t this what police officers are suppose to do? Why is their an article about them doing their job
To the comments about the robbers. Traffic cops do not deal with that type of thing. They deal with …..(wait for it)……traffic!!!
I commend you Inspector Adrian barnett, that number should have been 1,000 tickets in i week.
I was hoping to see at least one traffic cop strategically positioned at each round-about.
It is so frustrating to see at least 80% of the drivers in Cayman that do not know how to use a round-about,it is a miracle we are not having at least 100 accidents on these round-abouts daily.
I have seen the very Police breach the traffic laws.
How can one enter a round- about, never yielding , NEVER INDICATE which way he or she is exiting to, it is madness.
Inspector Barnett, i would hope you will advise the Judge to send these bad drivers back to school to learn to drive, stop selling driving license. let the perpetrators take driving lessons and redo their driving test.
ok which one is it going to be. Cath the thieves or robbers or give tickets.You know you can’t do both one requires to watch speed limlits,roadblocks from time to tome radar gun etc..A quick call from a buddie hey they are having a road block at so and so go through and you know the rest.You are using our policemen like yoyos.I just heard they robbed the money train by Foster’s airport. Still feel like giving tickets. While the canoes come fully loaded with more guns,chrismas shoppers and plenty weed.Get eveybody towards different directions. Don’t be so predictable.
How about you start taking some cars away for reckless operation. I mean actually do something that has dire consequences for these fools instead of being the Wussy Justice System you are. Don’t you get it…no one is afraid of the Po Po. They are more afraid of me with my big stick I keep in my truck than you police. I got it, we citizens will protect you if you get in a pinch and need to run into the store to top up your minutes so you can go back about your "work"
I see people passing people on the bypass going out to Savannah! Yes, the bypass that dead ends into Hurst Road. It’s one lane you say? Think Again…It’s two lanes. Not a cop in sight. Even if there wasthese guys would run from them
GREAT poolice give out tickets while robbers hold up everyone and everything in cayman . cool.
That is the only thing the Police are good at.Should I say job well done,or come on guys do some real Police work?
Wow! What an accomplishment as armed robbers take over the island.
Bravo!!! bravo!!! I am so much more worried about unlicensed drivers than unlicensed guns!!! This will definately help me sleep better at night! Go RCIP, your service is incomparible!!!
I certainly hope you were not one of the commenters who cried aloud when there was a drunk accident which killed either the driver or another.
all of those ppl should not be able to comment on both sides.
which one is it?
No one said this is not an important crack down, but we have to simply prioritize in these times, please compare road deaths by drunk drivers to murders by gun shots and armed robberies…. then let me know how you feel. This energy needs to be devoted to the more pressing issues!
Good on them! This is very much needed.