Every 12 months or so, or after a particularly bad traffic jam, someone inevitably reissues the call for a ban on non-Bermudian car ownership, because we all know that every Bermudian problem is ultimately attributable to foreigners.

Several months ago Government flirted with an additional twist on this model by suggesting that not only should those pesky ex-pats be prevented from owning cars, but also single people. Not surprisingly that idea lasted all of a couple of days; Cabinet foresaw not only fewer vehicles, but fewer votes.

So with another Throne Speech imminent, it's worth asking whether the traffic situation can be improved without taking such drastic steps.

The Transport Minister recently suggested, and he might be right, that it's time to start taking the tough decisions. The question becomes however just whom these decisions will be tough for? If Cabinet is truly serious on this and other issues, they'd start at home, in their driveways for example.

A logical first step in tackling congestion would be to reduce the size of the Government fleet of vehicles; there are just too many GP cars and Government vehicles on our roads.

Contrary to the belief in some quarters, there is no God given right for Cabinet Ministers to have an official car, nor high level civil servants. No other business in Bermuda is permitted to buy corporate cars for its management to complement their personal vehicles, so why should Government be any different?

There's little doubt that most of the GP cars serve very little official purpose other than being a taxpayer-funded perk; a second vehicle to circumvent the single vehicle restriction. On any given morning these cars stream into town with a Minister or a civil servant and their spouse in them, and back home they go in the evenings.

Leadership as they say starts at the top, and Cabinet should set the example by curbing their appetite for this longstanding perk. A more appropriate solution would be to maintain a Government pool of vehicles for use as needed, hopping in a taxi, or simply expensing fuel costs.

Not only would this remove unnecessary cars from our roads, it would save wasted tax dollars and earn Cabinet some much needed credibility before they propose these tough solutions on the rest of us.

Secondly, we should start enforcing some of the existing laws rather than start writing new ones. A good place to begin would be with some of the 'commercial' vehicles on our roads.

You know the ones, the 'you can't have one of these' glistening SUVs replete with leather seats, tinted windows and racing wheels. Most of these vehicles have never, and will never, see a bag of cement let alone a construction site; they're nothing more than oversized second family cars disguised as commercial vehicles.

But it doesn't end there. What's with all of these commercial vehicles on the roads on Sundays anyway? Most don't have the required permits to operate on a Sunday and clearly aren't going to a job site, but that law seems to have gone by the wayside.

This trick isn't limited to unmarked cars or vans either. Just look at the number of Belco, BTC, CableVision, landscaping and other trucks cruising the roads after hours or on the weekends. Rarely is the driver in uniform, nor is it all that uncommon to see a family of four jammed into a dump-truck for a family outing.

Clamping down on the number of unnecessary Government and commercial vehicles on the road is a useful step, but it isn't the only one. There are a few other moves we could take to ease traffic flow in and around Hamilton.

While the major pinch points are the South Shore and Crow Lane roundabouts, traffic through town moves like molasses as well ? except when the traffic lights are out. Surely it isn't a coincidence that when the lights were out for weeks after Hurricane Fabian, and again after the Belco power outage, that traffic flowed great.

While the simplest way to reduce congestion would be for more people to ride bikes or take public transport, if you must drive a car into town you're likely to spend as much time stopped as moving. A simple law change could ease this problem, one widely in place in North America; allow a left turn (in our case) on red.

If the junction is clear of pedestrians and no vehicles are approaching, why not allow a left-hand turn on a red light? Sure, some dingbat will take that as permission to charge through without stopping, but they do that already. The corners of Church and Par-La-Ville, Reid and Court, Church and Cedar Avenue or Church and Parliament for example would be great candidates for a left-turn on red.

Finally, and somewhat less critically, why not turn all the lights in town to flashing oranges on Sundays and late nights as they do in some towns? When approaching an intersection it's simply first come first served; no more waiting endlessly at red lights on an empty road.

These suggestions won't solve the problem, but before we bring out the sledgehammer, we might want to try the nutcracker.