ATTORNEY GENERAL Mr Freundel Stuart has Cabinet responsibility for the Royal Barbados Police Force and for the maintenance of law and order in this society, and it is not surprising to have him speak his views on the menace to this country of what has been called the ZR subculture. His focus on the owners is timely.

Mr Stuart's comments that new rules "may well involve legislation that would temporarily relieve the owners of their licences to those vehicles if they are unwilling to control their people" are a most welcome breath of fresh air. We can only hope his ideas find their way into our laws as soon as possible after the usual consultations with relevant interests, including the said owners.

In the final analysis, the state must reserve the right to control the use of any private property within its jurisdiction, if that property is being used for purposes detrimental to the society, and as Attorney General, Mr Stuart well knows this.

He seems to have drawn blood in his forthright utterances about the problem, so much so that owners of these public service vehicles, as they are called, are "particularly upset" by the minister's comments. But it is a sure a sign as any that his comments have struck a nerve and that he is perhaps on the right track to controlling and ultimately removing this horrendous scar from the legal and cultural landscape of our country.

Most Barbadians are well aware of the notorious disregard that some of the ZR drivers and conductors have shown for the road traffic laws of this country. Time and time again some of the most frequent miscreants among them appear before the Traffic Courts, wearing as it were, as a badge of honour, a rap sheet with 50 or more convictions for transgressions of our traffic laws.

Some of their number have even racked up even greater numbers of convictions, and on occasions terms of imprisonment or heavy fines have been imposed by our magistrates, but the riot continues. Only recently, one brazen cad drove without the appropriate licence while holding the lives of law-abiding citizens in his hands.

Worse still, from a sociological perspective, their public display of disrespect for law and order stretches to driving through stop signals at road junctions in reckless disregard of the lives of their passengers, and generally "cocking a snook" at the entire legal system by their wanton criminality.

Such public and pervasive disregard of the law is a powerful conditioning force on the minds of other users of the roads, and over time we have seen other road users emulating the behaviour of these louts, so that driving through stop signals at busy junctions is quickly becoming the norm. A creeping and poisonous disrespect for other laws will soon follow, and this insidious nonsense must be stopped if the public interest is to be protected.

One of the law's main aims is to control and eliminate those practices which are inimical to the social cohesiveness and the peace and harmony of the society. Every other method has been tried in an effort to control the conduct of those operators who, having been chosen by the owners to operate their vehicles, proceed to undermine the society at its most vulnerable points, namely its youth and its system of laws.

Habitual obedience to the law is essential for the good of all societies, but the ZR culture is doing its best to raise up a generation of citizens inculcated in the habitual disobedience of the law.

If the minister's idea reaches the statute book, it will represent the most effective way of rooting out a growing cancerous and destructive overthrow of our most precious values. This is a time for action, which is what we now expect from Mr Stuart. If he acts, as he has spoken, then he will have our blessing - and, we think, wide public support!