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Guam wants to stem number of island’s unlicensed drivers
HAGATNA, Guam (AP)—Leaders of Guam’s migrant community and Guam police want to reduce the number of unlicensed drivers on the island’s roads.
Unlicensed drivers caused two fatal crashes this year, the Pacific Daily News reported Tuesday. Police say they regularly encounter drivers without licenses when they pull people over.
Many unlicensed drivers are nationals of the Federated States of Micronesia, police say.
Micronesia Consul General Robert Ruecho said he has noticed the same thing. “Almost on a daily basis, I see someone arrested because he was driving without a license or driving while intoxicated,” he said.
There needs to be an effort to inform immigrants of road laws when they come to Guam, police said.
Lt. Manny Chong suggested handing out pamphlets to people boarding planes to Guam. “A lot of these guys don’t know” the laws, he said.
Ruecho has brought the issue to the highest levels of government in the Federated States of Micronesia.
He recently spoke with the federation’s vice president and invited him to come to Guam for a round-table discussion on public safety issues facing the migrant population.
“There’s no way he can get everybody to attend,” Ruecho said. But he noted that he hopes getting several leaders together would allow them to “pass words down to the grassroots.”
Ruecho said he is hoping to hold the round-table discussion around November.
“Like everybody else, we want people to do things according to the law,” he said. “Our people, regardless of where they come from, should try to follow the laws of Guam.”
He wants to go one step further than police’s suggestion of developing a pamphlet for to give to migrants before they travel to Guam. He wants to put together an orientation class people can take before coming to Guam.
That program, Ruecho added, is already in the works.
