The Island Traffic Authority administers the provisions of the Road Traffic Act, which speaks to the testing of vehicles to ensure fitness, road-worthiness and general compliance with standards of safety. The ITA therefore plays a pivotal role in ensuring that a high standard of safety exists on Jamaica’s roadways.
As a part of the Public Sector Modernisation Project, within the Ministry of Transport and Mining, the Island Traffic Authority (ITA) is being transformed into an independent statutory organisation. This will see the vehicle inspection services of the ITA being privatised while the remaining activities within the Authority will be modernised.
Functions of the Authority includes:-
- To enforce the provisions of the Road Traffic Act and of regulations made there under
- To regulate and control traffic on roads
- To inspect all motor vehicles from time to time
- To test applicants for drivers’ licenses as to their competence to drive and, in the case of
- chauffeurs, as to their mechanical knowledge, and to grant necessary certificates of competence
- To grant certificates of fitness
- To keep records of endorsements on drivers’ licenses
- To keep records of all accidents on roads
- To furnish annually to the Minister a report of all accidents on roads, which result in death or injury to persons, and as far as practicable, the causes attributed to such accidents
- To keep a Drivers’ Offences Book