MOPT Declares War on Drivers
Every early morning television new casts always begin with footage of  fatal or serious traffic accidents. The noon and evening reports show live coverage of the latest traffic accidents that have become common on the highways.

The Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes (MOPT) minister, Karla González, and Transportes vice-minister, Viviana Martín, are saying enough already, it is time to stop the bloodshed.

Topping the light of cause of traffic accidents are drinking and driving, speeding and careless driving, a lethal combination that last month killed an entire family in one single accident.

Collisions between passenger vehicles, accidents involving tractor trailers and pedestrians being hit on the side of the highways has become a normal occurrence.

The latest accident occurred in the early hours of Friday morning when a drunk driver plowed into another drunk driver accident scene that occurred minutes earlier. Five people, including a Tránsito (traffic) officials were hurt. The drunk driver in the first accident had to have her leg amputated as a result of being hit by the second drunk driver.

Both drunk drivers were young females.

As the afternoon newscasts were relating the details of that accident, the live cameras of both Repretel (channel 6) and Telenoticias (channel 7) were on the scene of another accident that had just occurred on the autopista Bernardo Soto in front of the Dos Pinos plant.

A careless driver cut off another vehicle who tried to avoid a collision was hit and dragged 100 metres by a tractor trailer. One woman was killed in the collision that tied up traffic west of the San José airport for more than an hour.

To combat the growing number of deaths on the highways, minister González, with vice-minister Martín at her side, announced changes to the driving license procedures and requirements and urged legislators to speed up passing of the bill to still traffic fines and heavily sanction drunk drivers.

The first major change to obtaining drivers licenses will be the requirement of at least five years driving experience for a B4 - the license to drive heavy trucks like tractor trailers.

Each stage of the licensing process from B1 to B4 will have separate and unique testing requirements, said minister González, with the objective of having better and more qualified drivers on the road.

That regulation will go into place once the government decree is published in the official government publication, La Gaceta. The publication is expected in the coming week.

The decree will attempt to correct a Sala Constitucional or Sala IV decision of a decade ago that struck down, among other things, the need for experience for driving trucks. As a result of that decision, anyone with a B1 license can take the test for a B4 without regard to driving experience or ability to handle big trucks.

The Sala IV decision at that time also put aside a law that requires a person to remain at the scene of an accident, arguing that it a person has the right not to incriminate one self. The Sala IV decision effectively gives the ok to hit and run and police can only track down the offender but not charge the person for failing to remain at the scene of an accident.

Minister González said that the changes will apply just to truck driver, which regulation becomes effective immediately, but to all types of licenses and will be in place within nine months. The new system, according to minister González, will consist of six manuals, each for every type of drivers license, plus another manual that will be specific for bad drivers - drivers who continually fail to respect the traffic laws.

Minister González said that once the Ley de Tránsito is approved there should be a noted improvement in the way people drive as they face heavy sanctions with fines into the hundreds of dollars to losing a license.

The minister added that Tránsito officials will become more strict in applying the current traffic laws and fines and is waiting on the approval to hire 300 more officials to beef the understaffed traffic police force.

On the subject of corruption, the MOPT minister recognized publicly that that is a serious problem at Tránsito, as it currently takes up to two years to remove a corrupt official. The minister has said that the new traffic laws before the legislators will allow authorities to remove a corrupt official quickly.

In the meantime, traffic accidents and fatalities are going to continue.