Legislators are racing against a March 1 deadline to pass a series of modifications to the transit law due to take effect that day.

Motivated by criticism that fines for traffic violations in the original law were too high, legislators are debating the introduction of more reasonable tickets.

The original traffic law was passed in November 2008 and threatened to raise the maximum ticket from $36 to $410. For those ignoring traffic lights or signs, it would be a $310 fine. Not wearing a seatbelt or holding a cell phone? Also $310.

Just weeks before the fines were scheduled to take effect on Sept. 23, legislators put its implementation on hold (estimated to cost $35 million), delaying it until March 1 of this year (TT, Dec. 12, 2008).

Speaking on the floor of the assembly on Feb. 18, legislator Andrea Marcela Morales said, “This is the hour to vindicate these mistakes, to give the Costa Rican people a better quality law, traffic legislation that is not lenient, but also doesn't smother people.”

The Arias administration presented the law early in its four-year term, and his cabinet is pushing to pass it before the administration leaves office on May 8.

“I t has been and will continue to be a priority for the government,” Rodrigo Arias, minister to the president, said in a statement last week. “We hope that … legislators will be ready to arrive at the necessary consensus, and once and for all, pass a transit law that is rational, that punishes those who insist on driving after drinking excessively, and who recklessly inflict death and pain on many families.”