The leading party in the legislative assembly is fast-tracking the transit law, with the hope of revising it before legislators leave office at the end of this month.

Their proposal is to lower the fines that went into effect at the beginning of March by an average of 65 percent, while eliminating the points system which would have assigned drivers points for each violation, leading the eventual suspension of the licenses of repeat offenders. According to National Liberation Party leader Legislator Jorge Mendez, proposed reform would maintain high fines for drunk drivers and for persons who directly threaten human life.

“I think we have arrived at an agreement to approve this bill,” Mendez said before heading into debate on Tuesday afternoon. “We have the votes necessary to pass the reform in first debate tonight.”

The legislators will be meeting in a series of morning sessions over the next couple days, with the hope of completing the process before the end of the week.

The penalties in the traffic law – first approved in Nov. 2008 – automatically went into effect on March 1, after legislators failed to make amendments in the law within a grace period they had established for this purpose. But with fines as high as $415 for attempting to bribe an officer or $300 for talking on a cell phone while driving, legislators began to second-guess themselves.

“We've said from the beginning that the fines and sanctions were disproportionate and (the law) included unnecessary requirements, such as first aid kits,” Luis Antonio Barrantes, a Libertarian Movement Party legislator, told The Tico Times in February. (TT, Feb. 2010)

Since the law went into effect, more than 21,000 tickets have been issued throughout the country. Although opposition to the hefty fines has been strong, intense debate has strangled any reforms to date, preventing an agreement.

“It's been a difficult process,” Mendez observed. “But we can't leave here without completing the process.”