Failure to produce your driver’s licence is an offence

Dec 17, 2020 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – Photographs do not lie; but neither do they give the complete picture of a development. Videos on the other hand allow for a greater appreciation of what took place.
A video, which was made public Tuesday evening, laid bare the concocted version of what took place regarding an incident at a police station on the East Coast of Demerara. From the video, the public should be left in no doubt as to who were responsible for the ensuing ruckus.
The Road Traffic Act of Guyana makes it mandatory for a person to produce his or her licence upon demand by the Guyana Police Force. A driver is given time to produce his or her driver’s licence. He or she must have the document for production when stopped. Failure to produce the document when asked to do so by the police rank constitutes an offence.
The police rank has to be able to determine the person who is driving the vehicle and whether that person is licenced to do so. The law does not allow for an image to be produced. Once you are stopped and asked to produce your driver’s licence and you fail to do so you are guilty of an offence.
The police, in such circumstances, can arrest you especially if they have no other conclusive proof of your identity. They cannot write a charge for the offence unless they can confirm the identity of the person to be charged and if that person is being charged only for not producing a licence or driving without a licence.
The police are required to give you time, if so needed, to produce your certificate of fitness and insurance. However, when it comes to your driver’s licence you are not allowed time to produce it. Failure to produce it immediately constitutes an offence. If the police arrest you and you resist then you can be forcibly arrested and detained or placed on station bail. There is nothing untoward about the police arresting someone for not producing a driver’s licence.
Even though it is a ‘ticketable’ offence, the police have to be able to verify your identity so that they can write the ticket. The police would want to see some ID and proof of address in order to ensure that you are not giving them fake names or addresses. This usually explains the arrest aspect but this is wholly unnecessary since once they can otherwise confirm who you say you are, they can write a ticket.
Many moons ago, someone was given a ticket for not producing his licence. The person had forgotten it home. The police rank had stopped the person a mere few houses from where he lived and the driver offered to walk back home to collect the licence. The police rank was not interested in him doing that. As far as the police rank was concerned, there were sufficient grounds for writing a ticket. The police rank believed that the person was who he said he was and lived where he said he lived and he wrote the ticket.
Regardless of whether you believe that police rank is being harsh or unreasonable, there is no justification for resisting arrest. And you should not in any way abuse or assault an arresting rank. You can make your calls to your friends and your friends can be told to whom they should speak. But there can be no condoning of resisting arrest or engaging in a ruckus.
This is unacceptable conduct. The police are supposed to uphold the law and if they are seen to be condoning persons assaulting and abusing them, then they will lose credibility.
In recent times, the police have come under serious attack from members of the public. There have been incidents in which ranks of the Guyana Defence Force have refused to be arrested or to give information to the police. In one case, a police rank was attacked and one citizen was overheard saying that the attacker was a solider; implying that the police should not be stopping soldiers.
The police have a right to stop anyone whom they believe is afoul of the law. No one should feel that they are above the law.
Guyana will be courting problems if every Tom, Dick and Harry is of the belief that he or she can do as he or she pleases when being arrested. The law does not condone resisting arrest or assaulting a police rank.
The video showed exactly what happened in a police station on Monday. That video is evidence which can be presented to a magistrate in pursuance of resisting arrest and assault charges.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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