THE BARBADOS LICENSING AUTHORITY will have more teeth when the changes are made to the Road Traffic (Amendment) Bill, 2006. Minister of Public Works and Transport, Gline Clarke, said yesterday, under the amendments, the Authority would now be responsible for the registration and regulation of the manufacturers of vehicle licence plates. "Within recent times the Royal Barbados Police Force has encountered a number of fictitious licence plates which have been associated with criminal activity. [They] have strongly recommended that something be done to control and regulate the manufacture and use of number plates. "There are a number of persons across Barbados who are making number plates and some of them are doing a good job. We recognise that it is a business activity that a number of small people are involved in and we wouldn't want to sideline any small business. "We want manufacturing of license plates to be standardised. We want them to conform to size, to colour [and] lettering. Therefore, we would want all manufacturers of licence plates to be registered with the Licensing Authority," Clarke said as he led debate on the draft Bill in the House of Assembly. The minister said there were a number of people making the plates without authorisation. He told the Lower Chamber that over the years there had been complaints that heavy vehicles were causing "extensive" damage to road surfaces. Clarke said that anyone with a vehicle over 24 metric tonnes had to apply for permission to drive on the road. "We will definitely be enforcing this," he said. (DS)
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