In a decisive parliamentary address during the Budget debate, Barbados Attorney General Wilfred Abrahams issued a forceful call for stringent new safety regulations requiring all public service vehicles (PSVs) to install dashboard cameras and GPS tracking systems. The Christ Church representative emphasized that previous governmental efforts to reform the sector through voluntary engagement had proven insufficient against persistent road safety violations and disciplinary breaches.
Abrahams articulated growing concerns about escalating violence and dangerous driving practices within the transport sector, positioning these issues within broader national anxieties about public safety and criminal activity. “The hot topic is violence and criminality and trying to get Barbados back to what we know it’s supposed to be,” he stated, noting that the PSV sector increasingly operates under a “philosophy that the laws do not apply to us.”
The Attorney General detailed the Mia Mottley administration’s exhaustive efforts to foster cooperation through dialogue, education, and negotiation. “We have talked about it for a long time. We have tried to encourage, we’ve tried to engage, we’ve tried to educate, we’ve tried to negotiate,” Abrahams recounted. “Nobody can now say that the government has not bent over backwards to meet the PSV sector where it is.”
With voluntary measures failing to produce adequate compliance, Abrahams asserted that mandatory technological oversight represents the necessary next step. He specified that vehicles should be equipped with dual-facing cameras (forward and backward) alongside GPS tracking to ensure comprehensive accountability throughout operators’ routes. “They must be accountable for the persons they have in that van from the time they leave on their route to the time that they come back,” he emphasized.
While carefully avoiding blanket condemnation of PSV operators, Abrahams maintained that the sector had reached an inflection point where regulatory enforcement had become unavoidable. “I am not laying blame… up to this point in time, we have tried,” he concluded, signaling a shift from persuasive approaches to mandatory compliance requirements.