Caribbean360: Jamaica open to giving disabled drivers licences

Jamaica open to giving disabled drivers licences
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Chris Hoyos on 18/06/2012 11:17:00
 
KINGSTON, Jamaica, Monday June 18, 2012 – An almost 80-year-old law that has
prevented disabled Jamaicans from being independently mobile looks likely to be
soon struck from the statute books.
Reports coming out of Jamaica are that amendments are likely to be made to the
Road Traffic Act Regulations of 1938, which prohibited persons with paralysed
legs from taking driving tests and earning the right to legally drive.
According to the Jamaica Observer, their coverage of the discrimination against
physically disabled persons who have been refused licences to drive based on the
requirements 1938 act caught the attention of Transport Minister Dr Omar Davies
and Senator Mark Golding, minister of justice, who have started the process
toward reform.
This was an area crying out for reform, so that persons with physical
disabilities in Jamaica are facilitated rather than held back by laws which have
not kept pace with modern thinking," Golding reportedly told the media house.
While it is possible for persons with disabilities affecting their spine and
legs to still drive vehicles by having the necessary pedals and levels normally
positioned in the floor of the vehicle moved to within arm's reach of the
disabled driver, according to the Observer, disabled people have been thwarted
from getting this far as the licensing authority had barred those with a
“walking disability” from even taking the driving test under the 1938 law.
Forty-four-year-old Gausia Burchell was one of the men whose plight was
highlighted in the Sunday Observer story. He was paralysed from the waist down
after receiving serious injuries while working in the US.
Sections 18 and 20 of the Road Traffic Act oultines the circumstances under
which an applicant for a driver's licence can be refused one. Applicants who
have a physical disability must produce a certificate "from a registered medical
practitioner, in the prescribed form, certifying that he is not suffering from
any such disease or physical disability as may be specified in the form, or any
other disease or physical disability which would be likely to cause the driving
by him of a motor vehicle to be a source of danger to the public...,"
including:“Loss of both hands or both feet, or one hand and one foot.”
However, after consultations among the Ministry of Transport, Works and Housing;
the Ministry of Justice; the Combined Disabilities Foundation of Jamaica; and
other stakeholders such as the Island Traffic Authority, an amendment is being
made to this regulation which would delete the words "both feet".
The minister of transport, works and housing has reportedly approved the
amendments which will come in force as soon as they have been signed and
gazetted, possibly within weeks.
President of the Combined Disabilities Association, Gloria Goffe, has been
quoted by the Observer as saying that the disabled community is really happy
about the amendment to the act, which will allow some of them to get their
licences on modified vehicles. Click here to receive free news bulletins via
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