Transport Ministry Bans Oversized Load Moves During Peak Hours

The Department of Transport is tightening the rules when it comes to moving houses and other oversized loads. Effective immediately, such moves are now banned during peak daytime hours. The goal? To keep roads safer and reduce traffic bottlenecks caused by these large, slow-moving vehicles. Chief Executive Officer in the Ministry of Transportation, Chester Williams spoke on the rationale behind the decision which takes effect today.

Chester Williams, CEO, Ministry of Transport: “The houses on our highway, during the day and especially at times during peak hours certainly renders our commuters and other road users to some extent makes it in adequate or them to be able to traverse the road ways and so we looked at the whole situation, we tried to find a time when we believe that it is going to be less inconvenient to the other road users. We were looking at Sundays only but again we did an analysis and we realized that on Sundays the highways are busy because we have people w Hoare coming back from weekend maybe in the south or in the west or from Chetumal or wherever so we do find that Sundays especially the evening time the highways are extremely busy. We’re hoping that people will see it as a balancing act and they’re going to embrace it and I hope that the people who are engaged in these movement of houses that they’re going to comply with these new rules to make sure that the road users are not inconvenienced during the week and during peak hours. So that’s the rationale behind what we did. At the end of the day they want to move their houses, it will come at a cost to them. They will have to take the cost.”

The DoT will now only permit the movement of houses and other large structures on public roads between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. daily, from Monday to Sunday.  Non-compliance with these regulations will lead to immediate enforcement actions, including fines, the impounding of vehicles, and the suspension of permits.