Police are stepping up patrols.

Where, may we ask, is the Minister of Transport? Apparently he is preoccupied with the way cars are painted and thinking of relaxing the strict code against "decorated'' vehicles and giving consideration to easing the regulations against dark tinted car windows. In other words, he is busy with cosmetics.

What Bermuda needs is a traffic plan. We need to plan future road usage. We have to think of vehicles and the roads as places for passage and for transportation and not as a place to have some sport on vehicles. The public has to have at least a reasonable expectation of safe passage on the roads.

As part of any plan, we have to begin the phasing out of combustion engine cars and the control of cycles more powerful than we need, and the phasing in of electric cars or non-combustion engine cars. Some states in the US are well ahead of us and Bermuda is the ideal place to control vehicles.

We should be announcing an overall plan for future public transportation, some of it designed to get people off the crowded roads. It is clear now that there is progress and the bus service is much more responsive to public needs and public demand, both in terms of scheduling and the availability of tickets for visitors. Now let's concentrate on the water and the ferries.

Another part of the future plan should deal with driver education before the grant of a licence which will only be granted as a licence to use a vehicle on the roads and not as a right. It should also deal with reeducation of drivers after traffic offences, especially after drunk driving offences and offences which might injure other road users.

The Minister should be taking a very hard look at the need for some of the vehicles on our roads. It used to be difficult to get a van licence. Now everyone seems to have a van and some are clearly used in place of the prohibited second car. There seem to be vans on the roads for businesses which no longer exist. Why does a dentist need a van? We should be looking at replacing the shorter bridges on the Railway Right-of-Way so that it can be better used. It may be that the Railway Trail should be reserved for walkers and joggers and pedal cyclists who are clearly in danger on the main roads today.

Bermuda needs to decide how it is going to get visitors about the Island smoothly and efficiently without the visitors feeling that they are isolated in their hotels or will be ripped off. Hotel courtesy buses appear to us to be a real part of the answer. As we concentrate on the problems of the tourism industry we have to consider the whole picture and not just hotels and entertainment. We have to get people to the entertainment.

Right now we seem to be enduring the dangers and the chaos on the roads without much hope of constructive change. It is past time to plan.