Georgetown : Failure to “shift yuh body weight” or “double up” may very well be reason enough for some commuters to either have to walk or take a taxi to reach their daily destinations. This notion has been embraced by many who are either forced to or opt to use public transportation on a regular basis.
To compound the very evident overloading situation occurring in some of the country’s minibuses, is the harsh reality that there remains, even after too many road fatalities, a need for enormous speed. In fact one commuter revealed to this publication that his decision to upbraid a driver for speeding saw him being forced to exit the vehicles miles before reaching his final destination.
This is the harsh reality that obtains on the public thoroughfares of Guyana, a state of affairs to which there seems to be no end in sight – at least not if some bus drivers and conductors can help. According to the man, the minibus he boarded Friday was expected to take him from the vicinity of Diamond, East Bank Demerara, to the capital city. “Since I enter the bus they just started to overload…they just keep packing people up like sardine…in the case of children they had to double up since the conductor was informing them that ‘is a favour I doing for y’all to even pick y’all up’.” Positioned in a seat just behind the driver, the man said that he observe the speedometer move from zero to hundred within minute and was certainly not slowing as the journey progressed along the East Bank of Demerara. Although there was an evident bottleneck since works are ongoing alongside the roadway, effectively ensuring that traffic remained at snail’s pace, the driver of the overloaded minibus opted to overtake several vehicles. Moving at a fast rate, the driver made a daring move to continue speeding directly into the path of a relatively fast oncoming traffic in the opposite lane. “It was at this time I had realised I had had enough…I said driver slow this bus down! He had the audacity to tell me ‘like you gon pay me if i slow this bus down…if you got a problem with this bus step’.” Not realising that this was a signal for him to disembark the minibus, the man said that the next thing he noticed was the conductor opening the door and informing him ‘big man yuh reach whey yuh going…’
“I decided it was best for me to come off because as far as I know it is better to be safe than sorry…I have a family to take care of and I know they would want to see me come back home.”
As such the man is calling for a heightened presence of police officers along the East Bank Demerara roadway to prevent potential road carnage.
