Careless drivers to pay for damages

National, Normal

DRIVERS of vehicles who crash into traffic planter boxes, traffic lights and cause damage to public properties will soon pay for these damages.
The National Capital District spends about K1 million every year fixing these damages, money that could be better spent elsewhere.
NCD Governor Powes Parkop said yesterday that the NCD have hired a lawyer and a prosecutor to assist them with the enforcement of the NCD traffic regulations.
Mr Parkop said these drivers who damage public property are “reckless idiots” who are either drunk, asleep, or do not know any driving or traffic rules.
“We have so many drivers and not many driving schools, but somehow these people manage to get their licenses.
“Traffic rules are always broken, slow vehicles drive on the fast lanes when the rule book says otherwise, and this shows that many of them do not know the rules.
“So I’m wondering where they got their licenses from,” he said.
Mr Parkop was responding to the latest incident where a traffic planter box got smashed into by a car on the Waigani Drive in front of Big Rooster in the early hours of yesterday morning.
This incident was not the first, but is hoped to be the last once the rules are made tougher on errant drivers.
PNG Gardener Justin Tkatchenko said such reckless behaviour by these drivers cost the tax payers a lot of money to repair, as a simple job of maintaining established trees and planter boxes is about K9,000.
The other planter boxes with plants in them cost K800 while a single traffic light along the freeways provided by the NCD cost up to K16,000 a piece.
“Every time a driver crashes into a traffic light, that is K16,000 gone.
“And where will we get the money to repair that?
“So drivers will now be made to pay for the damages they cause”, Mr Tkatchenko said.
Mr Parkop said the problem was that the mindsets of the people need to change so that they can be responsible for these properties provided for by the NCDC.