Thank God! After years of waiting, of promises, of carnage on the roads, and of public frustration, it is finally here.

Works Minister Colm Imbert announced yesterday that President George Maxwell Richards would proclaim the act which will allow the use of the breathalyser in Trinidad and Tobago on Monday.

For drinking and driving, the penalty for a first offence under the new law is $8,000 or imprisonment for three years. A second offence results in a $15,000 fine or imprisonment for five years, and a third offence leads to permanent disqualification from holding or obtaining a driver’s permit.

The Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Amendment Act, which allowed for the use of a breathalyser, was first passed under the United National Congress administration but was never implemented. The last People’s National Movement administration drafted a new bill in 2006. It was assented to on June 26, 2007, but there was a proclamation clause and the bill did not come into effect.

In making the announcement at yesterday’s post-Cabinet news conference, at the Office of the Prime Minister in St Clair, Imbert explained that there would be two tests-a field sobriety test, which gives a preliminary indication of the alcohol in a person’s system-and a more detailed test which would be conducted at the police station.

He explained that a police officer is empowered to stop a person driving a motor vehicle, whom he suspects of having consumed alcohol in such a quantity that the proportion in his breath exceeds the prescribed limit.

Police officers are further empowered to conduct a breath test and breath analysis.

’If someone is stopped in a road block, the police can make them breathe into the hand held device used for field testing which gives a reading,’ the minister said.

The threshold is .08 per cent ’according to my memory’, Imbert explained.

’If the reading is above that (prescribed limit), that is reasonable cause for the police officer to ask you to go to the station (to do a more detailed test). If you refuse, the way the act is drafted, that is probable cause to conclude that you are driving over the limit,’ he said.

He added that the onus would then be on the person to prove that they are not over the limit.

’And that is very difficult to prove,’ he said.

Imbert said under the act, the minister is required to approve devices for the purpose of obtaining an indication of alcohol on a person’s breath. He said after careful consideration of breath-testing devices, Government has identified two suitable devices. Of the two types of devices, the a hand-held device used for a field sobriety test, has limited accuracy and is not used for evidential (court) purposes, he said. The device used for detailed testing at the police station is used for court purposes.

Questioned about the use of such devices in a time of swine flu, Imbert stressed that a new mouthpiece has to be used every time the police officer does a test, so that no motorist is given a mouthpiece used by someone else. He said all this was part of the training to which the police are being exposed.

Cabinet also yesterday approved the publication of the necessary orders for the two types of devices, he said. He added that a number of police officers have already been trained in the use of the devices and Government will now go full scale to complete the training of police officers.

He said there were already some devices in the country, but by the end of this month and throughout the Christmas season, ’we should see police officers out in full force doing breathalyser testing’. He said Government was in the process of procuring more devices which are not difficult to get in a short space of time. Imbert said these devices are scientifically tested and will not be susceptible to successful legal challenge.

He said the Ministry of Works was currently doing comprehensive amendments to Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act, which would include fines for speeding and other traffic amendments, infant seatbelt law and introduction of the traffic warden system among others measures. He added that the technical staff had been given a mandate to complete these amendments by the end of this month.