The director of the Oficina Técnica de Transporte Terrestre (OTT), Federico González Aviles, has warned that all public transport vehicles that do not carry identification plaques with the drivers’ photograph will be impounded by the police with immediate effect. The plaques, implemented last November, are designed to increase passenger safety by preventing “unknown” drivers from committing robberies, and to control the official public transport routes assigned to various operator’s unions by the OTT. This announcement by the OTT follows claims by Ramon Figuereo, secretary general of the Central Nacional de Transportistas Unificados (CNTU), that drivers of small public cars without the plaques have been picking up passengers on routes on which they are not authorized to work. Mr. Figuereo has threatened to order members of his union to return approximately 10,000 such plaques (tablillas) if action was not taken by the OTT.
5-11 April 1996