Submitted by Anthony Davis PUBLIC TRANSPORT could be disrupted from as early as 6 a.m. on Monday as some public service vehicle (PSV) operators threaten to pull their vans off the roads – Nation Newspaper 15 September 2015 Dear Mr. Raphael, […] I do not think that you are in a position to “demand” or…
PUBLIC TRANSPORT could be disrupted from as early as 6 a.m. on Monday as some public service vehicle (PSV) operators threaten to pull their vans off the roads – Nation Newspaper 15 September 2015
Dear Mr. Raphael,
[…]
I do not think that you are in a position to “demand” or “insist” upon Government raising the bus fare to $2.50. The reason for this is that we do NOT reward indiscipline nor bad behaviour. Why should the hardworking taxpayers of this country – who are more heavily laden with taxes than an ox – pay you fifty cents more per trip? Do you need more money so that your drivers/conductors will have a better account to lean back on when the fines come?
The drivers of minibuses/ZR vans have been terrorizing the other road users of this country for eons now, and it is high time that they pay their rightful dues when they go before the courts. For too long have they been getting away with slaps on their wrists when they come before the said courts. If they would adhere to the regulations under which they work, they would not have to worry whether the fine will be heavy or not, But, they drive the length and breadth of our country bullying other road users.
The worst thing is when they dead stop in front of a truck or Transport Board – with the latter being the more vulnerable as passengers have to scramble for somewhere to hold onto when the bus has to make a panic stop. They dead stop when they see some female strolling down some road – even if she is at the top – and she continues to style down the road taking her cool time, because she knows that he will wait if he wants her $2. So, he waits there holding up traffic while the lady wastes other people’s time. They are mostly go-as-you-please – anywhere they like, any time they like, if they like. They drive the wrong way on one-way streets when it suits them – e.g. if one of their peers tell them per mobile where the police is. They drive through people’s parking lots when they feel it will give them an advantage over other road users as they must be the only ones who do not have any time to spare. Sometimes they are racing each other to get to their destinations, and other times they are crawling along and hindering the flow of traffic.
They have been given what I call a semi-uniform, and they have only worn it on the day when the Minister visited them in the River Terminal. Now one sees them in shirts which have more colours than Joseph’s coat. They have reverted to wearing slippers, because they are drivers/conductors who do not have to adhere to the rules and regulations of the road and any others which pertain to them, being part of the crew of that vehicle. One guy is complaining that he was fined $800 for wearing slippers, because something was wrong with his foot prohibiting him from wearing shoes!
I say that it is his own fault, because he did not use his common sense. That would have told him to get a note from the doctor and keep it with him in case he was stopped by the police. Surely, he didn’t expect the police to believe him when he said that something was wrong with his foot!
Ignorance is no excuse to the law.
On the other hand, and more importantly, we have commuters who have to pay four bus fares to get to/from work. Do you think, Mr. Raphael, that those persons should be burdened with an extra $2 per day just to uphold the indiscipline and bad behaviour of your drivers/conductors? If we take it that a person works five days per week, that’s an extra $10 which he/she has to find every week. That person will have bills, mortgages, rent to pay and cannot afford another tax on the meagre sum he/she is now getting.
I will not hold my breath on what you say will happen when GPS is installed in all vehicles. GPS will probably only tell you if the van/bus is on its legal route or off, but not if it has stopped or where it has stopped!
Will it tell you if the van stopped at the bottom of a road to wait for a damsel in distress who can’t walk too fast, and so traffic is held up unnecessarily?
Every law with which any government has tried to impart some kind of discipline into the ranks of your drivers/conductors has been adhered to for a brief period, but then it has been flouted with impunity thereafter. I don’t believe that your GPS will solve the problems for ever because one of the drivers/conductors will find a way of getting around it or disabling it. We need to see it work as it should for at least one year or more!
What is that about having different stickers for the good and the bad placed on the vans?
Wouldn’t it be better to pull the bad out of circulation?
I don’t care what the law entails, it has to make sense to me in order for me to understand its true purpose and aim.
Listen! Because someone said long ago that black compliments white and white can go with any colour that I am going to accept it at face-value without first exercising my individual judgment in choosing to wear pink and yellow.
Have you read the Obeah laws which were or are still on the books in Barbados? Perhaps, if you haven’t read them yet you to ought because their were enacted by intelligent people who would be viewed today as rather superstitious to enacted such nonesense.
And lastly, one has to challenge proventionalism and the conformity to the established customs and practices of his or her given society in order for there to be an advancement as well as a movement towards progress in the human affairs.
If you don’t get it why a driver should not wear slippers driving a public service vehicle you have no credibility. A simple observation by a passenger while disembarking the bus could lead to a police call. You have your points give others a chance to respond. The objective of a forum like BU is the benefit of interactions not monologues.
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Gabriel
I got my drivers license years ago and was given a pep talk by the Supt W Forde.In his debriefing he informed me and others assembled,in the customary way an experienced teacher would instruct a student,that it was an offence to drive unshod and worse to drive in slippers.Slippers attach themselves to the most unlikely places.Walking in slippers is the cause of many a fall,a broken hip or arm.These are dangerous things.
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Bush Tea
Shiite man Gabriel
Dompey just playing the ass… He must know that…
Wuh even his ‘family’ (Equus asinus domesticus) goes to work only when properly shod….
That is what blacksmiths are for…. 🙂
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Dompey
Bush Tea
It is funny how you made mentioned of the blacksmith because I actually worked with a police blacksmith as a young lad, and he now reposed in the celestial sphere somewhere out there in the Great Beyound.
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Simple Simon
Dear Dompey:
Slippers can slip off at the most unfortunate times. That is why they ar called slippers. Because they slip. We don’ want a bus driver scrambling for his slippers when he should have his foot firmly on the brake. Driving in slippers may in an emergency cause an even worse emergency and people may DIE.
Get it?
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Colonel Buggy
Even worst than wearing slippers , is to see a lady one day in high heels , the enclosed type , or what ever they called them, driving a Ford 250 truck. When she dismounted, she could have hardly walked in them. If you cannot control a pair of shoes, how well could you manage a powerful 4×4 pickup.
And the question of being against the law to drive in slippers, seem not to apply to our neighbours in Kensington new Road et al.
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Frustrated Businessman
Barbados gov’t competes against its own taxpayers in several areas of business on unfair terms.
Transport Board gets duty-free buses and duty-free diesel, private sector should too.
The only reason the Transport Board exists is for vote-buying, lacky-ism and teefing.
GOV’T HAS NO BUSINESS IN BUSINESS!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Sunshine Sunny Shine
Artaxerxes September 21, 2015 at 12:37 PM #
”I agree with your general comments, but not necessarily with your assessment that the private PSV sector is “90% owned by prominent persons.”
If prominent persons with influence are not the owners Artaxerxes, how do you justify the lawlessness on the roads that have been allowed to continue for decades by those who can easily put a stop to it? How do you also account for the fact that a number of the road traffic violations are squashed by a single phone call to a police sargeant friend or higher. I know this for a fact. If the Indian community is now the dominant group owing these fans, and their terms of employment and payment are the contributing factors to reckless driving seen on the streets, why have the authorities not clamp down on a system that is endangering the lives of the commuter or innocent bystander. The Indian community can be considered prominence because they reel a significant amount of influence. And since money has a tendency of perverting rules and regulations and, also tends to put the brakes ever so often on enforcement, then one can conclude that prominence are stakeholders who are basically hindering the process of correction by not doing what is necessary to deal with the PSV road use because to stop the system would not be beneficial to their waiting pockets.
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Artaxerxes
@ SSS
I do not disagree that vans are owned by “prominent people”, but you must realize that the Barbadian society is one that thrives on “kick backs” or “greasing the palms.” Just pass some money to get a favour done. It’s all about knowing “the right people in the right places.”
There are policemen who own PSVs whose drivers are not reported by other policemen. I know of a youngster who used to drive a “ZR” belonging to a policeman that plied the Silver Hill route. He said because of heavy traffic and to get ahead of his competitors he diverted and exited the road where the Sargeant’s Village playing field is located. A policeman on a motorcycle approached the van, looked at the number and turned around to proceed in the opposite direction.
If that van had belonged to me or the man on the “Cream of Wheat” box that policeman would have reported the driver.
I have seen the name “Kenneth Best” as the owner of ZRs plying “Route 7 – Howells & Ivy and “Route 3 – Wansted.” I have also seen him conducting on one of his a Wansted vans.
PSVs are also owned by civil servants and other individuals who may be seen as ordinary citizens, but they know the “right people in the right places.”
I have mentioned in a previous post that there are some people who, because they have a friend in Inland Revenue, are able to obtain a tax clearance certificate without filing an income tax return.
They may also have a friend at the Ministry of Transport who, for a small fee, would ensure the vehicle passes inspection. And this is evident by the condition of some of the PSVs on the road, which makes one wonder “how the hell did that vehicle passed inspection.”
Enfield Forde was a man who owned a number of PSVs. A few years ago one of his sons, while driving B147 along Kendall Hill, hit a taxi car. The owner of the taxi got out of the vehicle to inspect the damage as well as Forde’s son, who, on telling the man he saw no damage, returned to the bus and left the accident scene. The “taxi man” called the police and when they arrived he told them what had transpired. On mentioning the name “Forde” the police told the “taxi man” “guh home and rest yuh self.”
These are things that happen in this island. I am from the ghetto……. I grew up there, not in the “heights and terraces”………..I know things.
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Sunshine Sunny Shine
@Artaxerxes
As I said, prominence own the vans one way or the other. This is a problem that cannot be easily fixed when there is a stream line of beneficiaries who are connected to the PSV operations. Insurance companies are the only ones who have sought to make a move against the madness of these operators on the roads only because, or probably due to the fact, that there is not enough money in this sector by which a compromise. could be had. The truth of the matter is: how would you know who the owners are if the vehicles are registered in someone else’s name.
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Frustrated Businessman
When the Transport Board is dissolved and all bus routes in Barbados awarded at annual auctions for five-year terms, we’ll see ‘free and fair’ competition once again.
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Colonel Buggy
Frustrated Businessman September 23, 2015 at 12:08 PM #
You me revert to what it was before September 17 ,1955?
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Colonel Buggy
That should read “mean’
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Frustrated Businessman
No Colonel, I mean revert to less gov’t meddling in things they don’t understand, less awarding of profitable routes to their lacky friends, less wasting of taxpayer money on statutory corporations just to employ voters and teef money on gov’t contracts.
Everyone knows some routes are profitable and some are not. Everyone knows profitable route permits trade for as much as $300,000 going to the ‘owner’ who was awarded it by a gov’t friend for next to nothing. Everyone knows the Transport Board is a money pit. Everyone knows the Transport Board is competing unfairly with the private sector.
Disband the Transport Board.
Divide up the routes into five groups.
Every year publicly auction the one group of routes to the highest bidder. Some routes will bring a positive bid, some might bring a negative (i.e. Gov’t would pay operators annually on unprofitable routes). Routes go with duty-free bus and diesel permits.
Use existing inspectors to report bad behaviour and deal with drivers/owners harshly including taking away their routes.
This is not rocket science, it is common sense. We don’t employ common sense to run BDS, we employ corruption; there is invariably a non-sensible, corrupt reason for decisions being made.
Didn’t the Transport Authority promise to auction the routes a couple years ago?
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Colonel Buggy
What really is the role and function of the Transport Authority. We keep focusing with both eyes on the Public Service Vehicles, Transport Board Buses excluded, and are allowing other types of motorists and road users in general, to get away with murder on our roadways.
Picture this . Two night ago 8.30 PM. in a built up area with poor street lighting. I overtook a parked car on the left side of the road,and as I got level with the parked car,I was confronted by two scrambler motorcycles, riding side by side, with no sort of lighting attached. Is this what this country has come to, where everyone appears to ignore the law of the land, and from all account are given the go ahead by the authorities, who surely has observed what is happening, but prefers to turn a blind eye.
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Bush Tea
Wait…
Wunna ever check WHO are appointed on these ‘authorities’ /Boards/ commissions?
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