Man presents driver's licences with name of 'colourful senior superintendent of police'

Imagine being stopped by the police and being asked to produce your driver's licences, which does not have your name but the name of "a very colourful senior superintendent of police."

Well, transport minister Robert Montague said that scenario was played out in St Catherine. He argued that it is yet another reminder of fraudulent activities impacting safety on the nation's roads.

“Right now, people are walking up and down with bogus driver’s licences, and it is hard to distinguish between the bogus and the real. For example, a gentleman turned up in Spanish Town and was asked for his driver’s licence and he produced a driver’s licence in the name of a very colourful senior superintendent of police – the full name,” Montague said in parliament on Tuesday.

Montague said that additional security features will be placed on driver's licences to help eliminate the fraud. The new regulations under the Road Traffic Act will also allow for digitalised tests and periodic retesting.

“Right now, you go into an examination depot and do the test, a clerk takes it, corrects it and tells you if you pass or fail. You don’t get a chance to see the document itself. What we are moving to do is digitise it. Once you are onscreen and online, as soon as you pass it will be centralised, so that no local person in a depot would be able to change the scores or interfere with it …; it will be centrally dealt with,” he said.

Montague said the regulations under the Act are being finalised.

“Although this process is long and people have been waiting, it is the normal legislative process that we have to pay attention to, so that we don’t keep coming here to amend what we have just passed,” he said.