The amazing mathematics of taxi fare

Mar 15, 2026 Dem Boys Seh, Features / Columnists

(Kaieteur News) – Dem boys seh Guyana got a special kind of mathematics. It ain’t taught at the University of Guyana, but it operating very successfully on the road.

Take taxi fare for example.

On Monday you jump in a hire car and go a short drop. The driver look thoughtful, scratch he chin like a philosopher, and seh, “Bossman, is $1,000.” You pay, everybody happy, and you even tip a lil something because the man behave decent.

Then Thursday come.

You take the same route. Same distance. Same pothole you had to brace your spine for. Same dog crossing the road like he own the republic. But this time the driver turn around with the confidence of a man selling beachfront property and seh, “$3,000.”

Three thousand!

Dem boys seh if taxi fare keep rising like that, soon NASA going call Guyana to study the phenomenon. Because clearly gravity working different here.

Now don’t get dem boys wrong. Plenty taxi drivers honest and fair. Some of them charge reasonable money and carry you safe. They understand that people got to survive too. If you meet one of them drivers you feel like you find gold in the backyard.

But then there is the other category.

These fellas operating like every passenger just collect an oil bonus and got cash falling out they pocket. One minute you going Kitty, next minute the price sounding like you chartering a helicopter.

Dem boys seh the problem is simple: taxi fare in Guyana is like the weather—everybody talking about it but nobody regulating it.

In most sensible countries, transportation fares get fixed or at least properly regulated. That way passenger know what they paying and driver know what they earning. No confusion. No roadside negotiation that feel like you buying a used refrigerator.

But here, the price depend on mood, traffic, rainfall, planetary alignment, and sometimes whether the driver breakfast good.

Dem boys seh Guyana really is an amazing country. Nowhere else in the world you could take the same five-minute ride twice in one week and feel like the economy change three times.

So dem boys got a humble suggestion: regulate the fares. Because right now the only thing moving faster than the taxis… is the price.

Talk half. Leff half

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Dem Boys Seh, mathematics, taxi fare, University of Guyana

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