Melville Cooke Where have all the jolly bus gone? Long time ago. Where have all the jolly bus gone?I don't know
Minivan, General Trees
I UNDERSTAND why Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) drivers have to flee after they are involved in accidents. Who feels it knows it and I have nearly felt it in more ways than one. JUTC drivers have made very good attempt on the lives of my entire family, my wife's life when I was not with her, both of us together, and they had at least one very good shot at me, driving solo.
It is difficult to come upon scenes like the most recent white bus smash-up in which the two children were killed near Cross Roads and not feel very strongly about the matter. Of course, the JUTC drivers are not always at fault, but the careless, reckless 'doan cya' manner in which I have seen the buses being flung about the city's streets does not help at all.
The first time a JUTC driver tried his best to make me a widower was over in Twickenham Park, Spanish Town. In fact, he intended to make me bawl bitter tears that night, as my entire immediate family was in the car which he forced off the road onto the soft shoulder near the Registrar-General's Department (RGD). He came around the roundabout from the bypass as they exited Spanish Town, going past the Police Training Academy. They ended up travelling side by side on Mandela Highway briefly until he decided to switch lanes to get to a bus stop on the left. So he switched, not caring two hoots that a car was beside him. No indicator. He just switched, and kept coming, and coming, and coming. They ended up on the soft shoulder, in imminent danger of hitting the trees and/or going over into the gully.
The second time was a lane switch as well, this time going up Hope Road from the Devon House stop light. The bus was in the right lane (again) and the driver wanted to get to the bus stop on the right. So he just pulled over, ignoring my wife in the left lane. She ended up on the sidewalk and, when she extricated herself and drove to the front of the bus and said something to him, he ignored her completely.
I cannot believe that all the JUTC drivers are as terrible as the two in those cases. But I have seen far too many buses going chhh, chhh and being driven very carelessly, with absolutely no regard for smaller vehicles and human life, to not conclude that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way in which the JUTC buses are operated.
It can be only one of a few things the recruitment process, the training, or the buses are just too powerful. I strongly feel that a governor should be put on the engines of all the units, in any case. Those things are just too fast and too silent, as well. I believe that that has been a strong factor in the pedestrian deaths involving JUTC buses. You just don't hear the blooming things coming. And after they have scared you with their unannounced presence, they send the heart rate up another notch with a blast of noise from the back (now, why does that sound like a human being after a good meal of beans?)
Most persons would have encountered JUTC buses only when they are actually on the routes, but I have seen more of their power unleashed. In a former life, when I was leaving 7 North Street at all weird hours of the morning, I would encounter them heading out to do pick-ups or start the routes or something.
You have not seen a JUTC bus move until you have seen it at 4 a.m. heading up Eastwood Park Road. One nearly took care of me, as I turned the corner to Eastwood Park Road from South Avenue (on the green). I looked before I turned and, after I had been on Eastwood Park Road for about 10 metres, I felt a blast of wind, a presence, and heard a great roar of noise.
It was an undertaker in training, who was coming so fast that he had to swing into the right lane to avoid running into me. And at that speed, it would be highly likely that I end up with my picture on the Death Page, with far fewer words than these to sum up my life.
Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.
