Legislation Boosts Traffic Wardens’ Enforcement Role

Drivers, take note, traffic wardens may soon have more power on the roads. Up to now, if a warden came across a vehicle without third‑party insurance, they had to call in the police to make an arrest. But that could soon change. Legislation introduced today aims to give traffic wardens greater authority to arrest offenders and issue tickets directly under the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act.

 

Dr. Louis Zabaneh, Minister of Transport

“Using a motor vehicle not covered by third party risk insurance, failure to fix and display insurance disk on motor vehicle, failure to provide name and address under requests of a police officer, failure to provide name and address of a vehicle owner at the request of a police officer, and failure to provide identity of the driver of a vehicle upon the request of a police officer. Where officers on duty encounters any of the above infractions and are not sworn as special constables, their only lawful course of action is to refer the matter to a police officer. Accordingly, the bill seeks to amend section three of the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act, Chapter 230 of the Substantive Laws to broaden the authority of the traffic wardens from the traffic department and municipal authorities, to include the enforcement of an carrying out of duties, under the motor vehicle insurance third party risk act.”