Dear Editor,
Every day, we read stories in your newspaper about the many complaints local commuters lodge against minibus drivers: their reckless driving, their aggression, their rudeness. Every day, we read letters from persons who all share this complaint. And every day, too, we read about the numerous fatal accidents that they cause on the road. As a commuter, it is with some amount of sadness that I see how helpless all of us feel. As a volunteer working for development and equality in Guyana, it is with anger that I see how a small and arrogant sector of the population has—to borrow a phrase from other letters in your paper—held hostage the rest of us.
Travelling from Linden to Georgetown last week, myself and two other volunteers had the misfortune to get into a minibus driven by a reckless driver and with a rude and aggressive conductor. Despite complaints from other passengers, the driver continued to drive well over the speed limit, swerving on the wrong side of the road, and with a cab dangerously overloaded with more passengers that he had greedily picked up along the way. Add to this list of offences the fact that his radio was deafening (telling a passenger who complained, “Who’s the driver, you or me?”).
We informed the conductor that either the driver was going to slow down and let off more passengers soon, or that we were going to get off without paying. When he complied with neither, we got off the bus at the nearest well-lit location, at the Soesdyke junction. When all three of us said that we were only going to pay for those who got proper seats, the driver and the conductor became agitated and very aggressive. They attempted to force us back onto the bus by grabbing my friend by her arm and pulling her back.
As if this wasn’t disturbing enough, onlooking taxi drivers did nothing to help us. Three of them—all of whom, it must be said, had bottles of beer in their hands and were reeking of liquor—joined in the haranguing, telling us to pay the bus driver or offering to drive us to the police station for the extortionate sum of $5000.
There were no policemen in sight during any of this, and the other passengers, some of whom were complaining loudly during the bus, all mysteriously lost their vocal powers and refused to get involved.
Given this situation, I ask: what kind of change are we expecting from law-breaking drivers when there are laws, but no hope of implementing them?
What good are Guyana’s road-safety laws, anti-drunk-driving laws, even noise pollution laws, when everyone flouts them with no regard? And what good are our complaints, when we refuse to stand up, not just for the safety and integrity of other people who need our help, but for our own safety and integrity? Are we content to just put life and limb in the hands of these maniacs, and hand over our hard-earned money so that they can play Russian roulette with our lives?
The minibus eventually drove away, but not before the conductor took our money and, for good measure, threw a bag of food that he had taken from us onto the ground. I’m afraid he learned no lessons from us that night, and perhaps nothing will come of this complaint. But here’s a last, desperate attempt to save other passengers from that horror: if you need to commute between Linden and Georgetown, stay clear of bus #BLL 2546. You’ll be safer riding another bus, and that driver may yet learn that there are consequences to breaking laws.
Yours faithfully,
Name and address supplied
