TRAFFIC ranks in Region Two which stretches from Pomeroon to Supenaam are abusing the privilege much to the detriment of hire car drivers in the district.
For no justifiable reason on Sunday around 1pm,10 drivers were ordered to lodge their vehicles at the Suddie Police Station compound with the keys also taken from them. The action by the police was deemed to be ultra vires when considering that we were not informed of having committed any offence whatsoever.
It is obvious that had there been a breach in the traffic regulations,a ticket would have been issued but even this was not done, so what’s the reason to cause us to suffer unnecessarily?
During the busy Sunday market day,passengers were stopping the drivers to join their vehicles by the old car park area when the police moved against us. It was not a case of our vehicles being parked there in disobedience of the police instruction to use the new park by the post office.
The ranks so involved are showing no cognisance for press statements ever so often made by the Minister of Home Affairs, the Commissioner of Police and the Traffic Chief in respect to the impounding of vehicles, with them doing their own thing contrary to the rule of law.
Nothing was achieved by the police to detain the vehicles with only the drivers suffering loss of income ever so much important in these hard times.
What was even worse was that the drivers were told to return at 8 am the next day to collect their vehicles. When this was done, it was postponed to 10 am and then 1pm. This pushing around created some suffering for us.
The police can do much better to prevent such ugly incidents.