Unmanageable insanity on the roads tonight

Dec 24, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

People drive horribly on the roadways of this country. The main culprits are taxis and minibuses. To look at how these two categories of humans use the roads is a sad indictment of Homo sapiens.

What is man made of when you look at the behaviour of taxi and minibus drivers? Are these people really higher animals? I have seen uncivilized driving from these two categories of drivers that would not be tolerated in other parts of the globe. It is just the savage use of a vehicle.

I think living in Guyana and watching the people behind the wheel of a hire-car and a minibus must cause you to lose your faith in the human being. I could just imagine a foreign visitor saying; “Are these people humans?

There are ingrained attitudes of these drivers that are simply incredible to comprehend. They do not observe lane-driving. They are completely contemptuous of that. Secondly, they frown on the waiting process. Once they drop off, they drive off immediately totally oblivious to oncoming traffic. Thirdly, you cannot get a minibus to pull up on the parapet to pick up a passenger. The parapet is territory they do not recognize. What goes through the mind of a foreigner in Guyana when he/she sees a hire car or a minibus just stop suddenly right there on the road to collect a passenger and the traffic behind comes to a stand-still?

Is there an answer to the psychosis of driving that afflicts these two categories? The answer is yes, but I doubt whether there is the will of the authorities to embrace that solution. There are band-aid remedies being talked about. One such plaster is the importation of huge buses that will do non-stop journeys on long distances and probably will have more responsible drivers.

How that is going to put an end to psychotic driving by mini-buses and taxis is a mystery. These men will still do crazy things on the shorter stops.

The solution lies right in front of our eyes. It is just that our leaders (forget our police officers; they are a visionless bunch) do not have the will power to tackle the insanity on the roadways. Increase the fines for lawless driving enormously. Make it punitive.

We may not like the draconian measure the Americans adopted but they felt it was necessary to deport convicts back to whence they came if they were not American citizens.

Many European countries do not offer children citizenship if their parents are not from the land in which the babies were born. Take Singapore; once a child is born there to non-Singaporeans, that child will not get citizenship. The Europeans have done this to stop non-Europeans birthing their children in Europe, and then claim the right to stay because their offspring were born there.

When a country faces a social sarcoma, it has to confront it. Guyana is not confronting the mini-bus and taxi culture. Once found guilty, the license should be suspended. A repeat offender should be told that a third violation means automatic jail. We are treating the semi-civilized minibus culture with kid gloves. A guilty plea results in a $5000 fine and the driver continues his sickness on the roadways. His license is not withdrawn. Another band-aid solution is the surveillance cameras.

They catch erring drivers but the fine is between $5000 and $10,000. Why do the policy-makers think that taxi madmen and lunatic mini-bus drivers care about a $10,000 fine? It will hurt them if they have to pay $50,000 for lawless conduct on the roads even for the most non-lethal offences. It will hurt them if the fine is accompanied by license cancellation.

The vehicles on the streets in Guyana are now becoming countless. Imagine then what happens when in this world of metal thickness taxis and minibuses continue to create mayhem. Policy-makers surely must have seen this crazy attitude of these drivers because they use the roadways.

Who in this country that owns a vehicle is not fed up with the way taxis and minibuses are driven? You could be the biggest, most fanatical supporter of the working classes of Guyana, but your embrace will stop at taxi and minibus drivers. They are just lawless people unfit to use the streets of this country.

Of course there are exceptions. Of course there are well behaved hire-car drivers and minibus drivers but in general, these two categories are people that must be condemned for their reckless behaviour. They have to be stopped before it is too late. Or is it already too late?

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Unmanageable insanity on the roads tonight

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