There are over one million cars on the nations roads and over 650,000 drivers' permits on the Licensing Authority's system.
These were figures presented by Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi in Parliament Friday during his wind-up of the debate on the act to amend the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act, Chap. 48:50.
The bill, which provides for the enforcement of new maximum speed limits on specified classes of motor vehicles outside and within built-up areas, and would raise the speed limit from 80 km/h to 100 km/h, was passed on Friday night with the Opposition's support.
Responding to earlier comments about the reasons which influenced the decision to change the speed limit, Al-Rawi praised the engineering division of the Ministry of Works, saying the team took a scientific and data-driven approach to making recommendations.
He said while the country's roads were designed for vehicles going at speeds of 125 km per hour, the actual prescribed velocity was 100.
"What was missing in T&T was the actual data and so the priority for the ministry was to collect the data, test the data and then put the data into utilization. By April 2018 we anticipate that we will have gone live."
Earlier in the debate, Mayaro MP Rushton Paray, while supporting the bill, said he was concerned it was being treated like most things.
"We like to treat the symptoms and not the root cause of the problem. The vehicle amendment bill talks about fines for speeding, reckless driving, road rage. It tries to treat the issue of road carnage with a hope that policing of roadway is the cure. But we need to treat the root cause. Why are people busy? Why are we speeding? Why are we angry on the nations highway?" He said the root cause may be due to traffic and congestion on the road.
Paray said the decentralisation of government services could lead to more efficient use of time, better family life and happier employees.