PRESIDENT Christine Kangaloo has made a passionate appeal for the government to revisit its plan to do away with the demerit points system for motorists.
Addressing the ceremonial opening of the 13th Parliament at the Red House, Port of Spain, on May 23, Kangaloo said the plan to scrap the system affected her personally as she had lost two of her siblings in car accidents.
“Demerits points systems, in general, have the goal of safeguarding road-users. Road accidents cause death and disabilities. They also cause unbearable mental anguish and long-lasting trauma. Sadly, many of us here, today, have felt this anguish and still live with this trauma,” she told parliamentarians and guests, who included Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, the island’s Chief Justice Leslie Francis Haynes and former TT president Anthony Carmona.
“In my own case, one evening in 1993, I received a call from a policeman telling me that my only sister, a data entry clerk, had been killed in a motor vehicular accident. The anguish and the pain I felt then, are still with me today.”
Kangaloo said in 2012 she got another call telling her that her brother, an acting Chief Justice at the time, had been in a terrible vehicular accident, which it was not expected that he would survive.
“He survived for a year, with severe disabilities. Even as I speak these words to you, today, the pain of these losses still weighs me down. As I have said, I know that thousands of citizens share the same pain.”
She said no one is exempt from dying or losing a loved one in a vehicular accident.
“Clerk or Chief Justice – it can happen to any of us. I therefore plead with Parliament that, whatever is done in this area, Parliament commits to ensuring enhanced safety on our nation’s roads, and to reducing road fatalities and related injuries.”
In a brief but wide-ranging address, Kangaloo also suggested several areas, which, she feels the government can intervene in the interest of national development – the first being artificial intelligence (AI).
Applauding the government for creating a Ministry of Public Administration and Artificial Intelligence to promote a heightened recognition of AI, she said it should consider devising a regulatory framework for the technology in a way that not only makes the country globally competitive but “maximises its benefits and minimises its risk to citizens’ well-being.”
Kangaloo said, “For all of its potential to do good, research shows that, without proactive regulatory intervention, AI can pose a variety of social and economic risks. These include displacing large segments of the workforce, concentrating economic power in the hands of a few dominant players, and exacerbating inequality.
“There is, therefore, the view that, where AI is concerned, society benefits if legislators anticipate risks before they materialise and establish legally enforceable standards to pre-emptively protect against systemic failures, unethical practices, and threats to market integrity.”
She continued, “The creation of the new Mi
