Faced with the worrying numbers of traffic fatalities, the High Commission has strengthened control and repression in Tahiti. Several roadblocks were organized this weekend from Arue to Papara by the police and gendarmerie. From the use of a helmet to the blood alcohol test, including checking safes and the vehicle, about a hundred offenses have been observed.

About fifty gendarmes, 13 municipal police officers, several dozen agents from the territorial management of the National Police… The police were out this Friday evening despite the pouring rain. “Not for fun, but for safety”, explain the rows. Because the safety figures are precisely cause for concern: 32 deaths on the roads since January, already more than for the whole of 2021, 2020 or 2019. And this figure should not let us forget the serious injuries from accidents, more than a hundred and minor injuries, of which the number will exceed 300 in 2022. especially on the side of suppression. This weekend road closures were active from Papara to Arue via Faa’a or Pirae.

With alcohol control, of course, but also papers (the number of observed insurance errors doubled in 2022 compared to the previous year), technical obligations for vehicles, wearing a helmet or belt… And euphoric drugs. After a few months of shortage, the police are indeed “rebuilt” in saliva tests, which are carried out more frequently than ever. “We have no choice now, everything is connected, explains the territorial director of the National Police, Mario Banner. The High Commissioner gives us instructions on preventive missions, and I also ask the prosecutor’s office to please hand over legal requirements to us, so that we can simultaneously check the trunk of vehicles, with a dog, to see if he is not there. are no people carrying hashish or anything else.

Of the 800 vehicles checked by the gendarmerie and the police on Friday evening, about a hundred violations were noted, of which about 40 resulted in vehicles being stopped.