Transport Minister Robert Pickersgill is seemingly optimistic that recent amendments to the Transport Authority and Road Traffic Act will bring order to the public passenger transport sector.
We are not so sanguine. He should be reminded that laws by themselves are meaningless if there is neither the commitment nor the will to enforce them. We have had laws on our books to address many of the daily violations on the streets being perpetrated by taxi drivers and other motorists and yet little is done.
It is also almost farcical that the minister thinks the amendments will have a meaningful impact on "the growing problem of illegal taxis". For how many years has that problem been examined, studied, talked about, perused and ignored?.
Predictably in Jamaica if you give some people an inch they will take two yards and our taxi drivers have taken quite a few. So now there is an estimated 18,000 illegal taxis on the roads, according to the Minister, competing with the state-run Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) units.
Quite apart from the implications of a loss of revenue to the JUTC, there is the chaos created by the free-for-all, cut-throat hustling among many of the drivers. Individuals or groups of persons often take over sections of public thoroughfares converting them into taxi stands and they continue to cram more people into vehicles than they are legally permitted to carry. Of far more concern to other motorists is the tendency by taxi drivers to overtake long lines of traffic at break-neck speed before they cut in ahead of other motorists at the approach of other vehicles going in the opposite direction. The fatality toll from incidents like these tell their own story. They snub the road traffic regulations with impunity and are simply allowed to get away with it.
This kind of behaviour is but another example of the lawlessness abound in the country. The violations to which we have referred cannot be addressed by colour-coded stickers or drivers having their picture IDs prominently displayed in the vehicles. This calls for a fearless, fair, efficient and professional monitoring of the roads by the police and Transport Authority personnel.
Unfortunately the traffic police seem far more efficient at issuing tickets to private motorists than in tackling the wanton recklessness by taxi and other drivers. Public cynicism is strengthened by persistent reports that many of the units competing with JUTC buses are owned by members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) and other public sector personnel. So even taxi drivers themselves complain that there is no even-handedness in addressing traffic violations.
These issues cannot be remedied by amendments to the law. There must be a co-ordinated systemic plan involving the Ministry of Transport, the JCF and the Transport Authority to reduce the incidence of corruption to clean up the system.
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