Time to regulate and regulate transportation in Guyana
DEAR EDITOR,
Have you ever tried to get a bus just to get bus operators pulling and pulling on you (in cursing each other and arguing and fighting for you) to force you into this bus or the other bus, hell be bending not to let you get into another operator’s bus. ?
The issue we face with transport providers in Guyana is that, unlike more developed countries, bus owners and operators are competing with each other for passengers.
This should never be the case. Especially not in Guyana.
In the absence of properly enforced traffic laws, competition between bus operators causes them to exceed the speed limit, to exceed their passenger limit, to stop for injections in illegal and dangerous places, to overcharge passengers at night, to generally behaving illegally. without regard to the safety or welfare of paying passengers, etc., etc.
The list is long. When bus operators compete for money, passengers are no longer people but only another $ 100 each.
On the other hand, where the bus operators are paid by the government a flat salary every month, they do not compete with each other because no matter how many passengers they pick up, they will still get their flat wage (the government pays them a wage from the money collected by selling bus passes that passengers use instead of cash when paying the bus operators – the bus operators collecting cash from passengers but from the government).
Bus operators, who are paid a flat salary every month, do not stop for you unless you are at the bus stop as required. People in developed countries are aware that to get a bus, they need to be at the bus stop before the bus arrives.
Bus operators who receive a flat salary each month no longer see the need to accelerate. They do not overload. They do not overtake each other or race each other. They don’t play loud music to attract more customers, and so on.
It is high time something was done to regulate and regulate transportation in Guyana.
What can be done is that a political party with the necessary courage, while in government, can and should make the firm decision to stop all bus operators from providing public transport unless they are employ with the government to do so.
The definition of “public transport” is nothing but transport provided to the public. What is it? It is transportation provided to the public by the government.
What we have right now is transportation provided by private individuals which makes it private transportation.
We urgently need public transport.
There are many people who have been forced to buy old cars because they are too poor to afford better ones, and too scared to use minibuses.
In developed countries even people who own several cars still use public transport on a daily basis. They use their cars to travel on routes that are not covered by public transport. This saves them from wearing their cars down and wasting money on gas.
We will continue to be a truly backward country unless something is done very soon to ensure that our citizens are provided with basics as (1) well paid police officers who are not ‘ n taking bribes but enforcing the laws especially the traffic. laws, and (2) actual public transportation, etc.
John Fraser, LLB