By Claudia Gardner:
Mayor of Lucea and Chairman of the Hanover Municipal Corporation (HMC), Sheridan “Worm” Samuels, has expressed alarm about the number of errant motorcyclists riding unlicensed and uninsured motorbikes all over the parish, with impunity.
The Mayor was speaking against the background of grave concerns expressed by head of the Hanover Fire Department Superintendent DeSouza, about what he described as the “considerable increase” in motor bikes and motor vehicle accidents in the parish, during the Regular Monthly Meeting of the Hanover Municipal Corporation.
The Mayor expressed dismay after the Superintendent said the accidents were not only impacting his department, but also stressing the police and the health department.
“I am really concerned I have heard I time and time again – where there councilors are concerned – about bikes and the accidents and the things that the motor bikes have been doing in the parish,” Samuels said.
No Helmets
Samuels who is a former national Under-23 footballer, said that one of the things which he particularly found disconcerting, was the fact that the motorcyclists were riding around without helmets all unconcerned about being prosecuted by the police.
“I know growing up, that there were some laws that speak to persons riding motor bikes, having riding helmets; that law still stands. But I don’t see anybody at all riding bikes in helmets. So it means that every single one of them that is out there without helmets, police can stop them and seize the bikes. And bikes are what they are using to commit most of the crimes within the parish,” the Mayor said.
“We have seen it; we have experienced it and everything. So that is one reason why you can take away those bikes. Again, I am still seeing bikes that don’t have licence… some bikes have no form of registration at all,” he added.
Samuels, who is also Councillor of the Cauldwell Division, also took issue with the fact that motorbikes were being allowed to be sold then and ridden on the public roadway without even being licensed and insured, unlike motorcars which have to have all the requisite documents in order to qualify to be driven from the carmarts.
“I am asking the question again. How is it, that if you are going to buy a motorcar, before you can take it from the dealers, you have to license and insure it – at least insure it before you can move it, but for motor bikes – motor – the only difference between both of them one have four wheels and the bikes you will have them in two and so,” the Rusea’s High School old boy said.
“They have the same method of starting and the same combustion engine and all those things within them. So how is it that you are selling bikes and selling bikes is different from the dealers that sell cars? I strongly believe that all bikes, before they move from the location, should be licensed and insured before they can move it from that location,” he added.
Mayor Samuels said that the problem is not peculiar to Hanover, but occurs across the entire island, due to “those aspects of the law” not being enforced, which would ultimately make things much easier and result in less accidents.
Other aggravating issues, he said, related to the type of stunts being carried out on the public thoroughfare by the bikers, and the access to the vehicles by children.
“Because guess what, a bike park and you have a child under 18 year can get the key and just ride out. You see dem on di road up inna di air wid di wheel,” he said.
“Mi nuh really badmind and envy a person who can ride and go up in the air, but I don’t want to try and do that because I couldn’t dweet, becaw I don’t have the skills,” he quipped, evoking an outburst of laughter from the meeting attendees. “But it is not right; it is not right.”
One wheel-wheelie
Samuels said once the Hanover police made a greater effort to get the bikes off the streets, then the issued raised by Superintendent DeSouza would come to an end.
“One wheel wheelie-wheelie,” he said referencing Dancehall deejay Early B’s 1980s hit, then added: “When a man riding a motor car go out there and drive in a particular way, police stop them and charge them for what? Dangerous driving. So isn’t it that they can be charged for Dangerous riding?”
“So these are the little things that we would want to see happen. And get these bike people offa di road. If they are not properly licensed and fit and ready, for the road, get them off the road. Less accidents,” he indicated to the Commanding Officer of the Hanover Police Division, Superintendent Sharon Beeput, who was in attendance.
In response, Superintendent Beeput said that the traffic police under her command were steadily nabbing the wayward bike riders one by one and seizing the motorcycles.
“The police have been doing what they can, and we are enforcing. You said you have not seen much, but if you come by our headquarters, you will see the amount of work the police has done relative to motorcycles we seized. On a daily basis, it is being done. Up to yesterday one young man from Greenland was riding around, riding around the road way and one member of the CIB, he took in that motorcycle,” she said.
“And sometimes when we do seize motorcycle, persons are coming back to us asking us to release these motorcycles to these same persons. So we have to understand what we really mean or what we really need for this parish,” she added.
More than 1000 bikes seized by Hanover police
She said the evidence of the hard work by the police could be seen at the Divisional Headquarters compound where more than 1000 motorcycles which were seized have been stored ahead of auctioning to the scrap metal industry.
“Relative to their” helmets, every day persons are being charged. It is being done. It might look like it is not happening… the space is full now… You have to understand. They are not easy to be held. Whenever they park the motorcycle wherever it is, they are caught,’ she explained.
In January 2016, Leonard Sharpe, a former vice-president of the Hanover Parish Development Committee, had said that motorcycles were being sold like regular household items, by haberdasheries, car was operators and other commercial entities usually without the requisite trade licenses, within both Hanover and neighbouring Westmoreland.
“Anybody who wants to sell bikes, just buy bike in the two parishes. Some set up a container and buy some bike put inna dem and jus’ a sell bike because money a run. And they are not authorised dealers…” Sharpe had stated.
“You have people who just set up a place like a shed and sell bike. And they are selling the bikes without helmets and di guy dem (motorcycle purchasers) nuh business,” he had said.
