Many pedestrians and motorists alike will have been happy to read in Monday’s paper that police are going to tackle heavy equipment operators. There is a general perception out there that the vehicles in question are sometimes driven in an irresponsible manner considering their massive nature and consequential difficulty to stop and/or manoeuvre quickly.
The spilling of concrete, cement, sand and gravel on the street is indeed becoming a serious problem, especially when those responsible fail to clean up the mess. Often it happens as a result of overloading trucks, which is illegal and downright dangerous.
Adopting a zero-tolerance approach towards these annoying practices is already long overdue. The impression exists that the drivers up to now hardly feared getting caught, simply due to a lack of control.
The same goes for the rule that heavy equipment may not be on the public road during rush hour traffic from 6:30 to 8:30am and from 12:00 to 2:30pm, which is violated more than once practically on a daily basis. All this probably won’t change until offenders are actually made to pay the fines ranging between NAf. 500 and NAf. 25,000 or have their vehicles confiscated.
As usual, enforcement is the key.
