THE EDITOR, Sir:

Day after day, as one moves around this tourist town, it is literally impossible to detect a policeman or woman in any location. One wonders where the protectors for the visitors to our country and locals hide themselves.

In the mornings, it would be delightful to see one of these bastions of the law conducting traffic at the lights at the bottom of Fern Gully, controlling the filter traffic from Fern Gully turning west.

Towards evening time, there is a riot of abysmal driving by the taxi drivers. Never once have I seen one of these madmen being pulled over and charged. It is not uncommon to see a taxi travelling in a westerly direction, spotting a customer on the other side of the street and spinning around in the middle of the road, cutting in front of the car on his right hand travelling in the same westerly direction, to head in an easterly direction.

In the evenings from 5:00 p.m. to after 7:00 p.m., it can take a motorist anything from one to one and a half hours to travel east from the lights south of the police station on the main highway to San Souci.

Let me suggest one traffic cop where the old main road at Sandals Royal Plantation joins the highway. Another parked comfortably in a car at the new Petcom gas station to prevent taxis shortcutting through the station. A third cop directing the distribution of traffic up the White River Road from the main highway.

The same frustrations take place between 7:45 and 9:30 a.m. every morning when travelling in a westerly direction.

I am, etc.,

GEORGE BENT

Motorist, Ocho Rios