‘Robot’ cabbies cry foul at route lockout

Illegal cabbies who ply the St Mary to Half-Way Tree route have lamented being locked out of regularisation as hackney taxi operators for the last 30 years.

That shutout has been partly blamed for the prosecution of their colleague, 26-year-old Jamoy Pusey, who was captured fleeing chasing cops Monday in a viral video.

Pusey hit a motorcyclist from a bike in a 10-minute chase that ended after the police appeared to fire warning shots.

The drivers of the illegal cabs - or ‘robots’, in Jamaican parlance - said they have sought audience with the Transport Authority (TA) to normalise their status on routes from Kingston to Annotto Bay, Port Maria, and Highgate - all in St Mary.

Those talks have been fruitless, they said.

“Dem always a tell we say ‘It’s a bus route’, and the only way we can get a red plate is if we are hackney, but we show dem seh we don’t [only] run inna town and hackney don’t provide a route fi out a town,” one of the illegal cabbies told The Gleaner on Tuesday.

The taxi men said dozens of them have operated outside of the law for decades, providing a critical service in a market that is underserved by legitimate players. Their survival is testament to their necessity, they argued.

Commuters are charged $250 on buses plying those routes but are willing to pay twice that fare on robot taxis, which spend shorter time spans loading passengers and which are nimbler, travelling faster and often breaching traffic laws.

“You have passengers who want to reach either Kingston or St Mary quick, and instead of waiting for passengers to load, dem charter the whole car and pay fi di empty seat just fi we drive off!” one of the illegal cab drivers said.

Their identities have been withheld for fear of prosecution.

But Petra-Kene Williams, acting general manager of human resource and administration at the TA, explained that legislation has caused the agency not to be able to grant the drivers hackney carriage licences.

“Based on my recollection, the issue of taxi licences on that route surfaced some seven to eight years [ago] when the then MP asked for the Authority to review the route,” Williams said.

The TA executive said that based on Section 60 (1)E of the Road Traffic Act, the TA issues route taxi licences for distances spanning no more than 30 kilometres.

Road licences have been issued to other units, such as minibuses and Toyota Coasters, to operate on that corridor.

“The Transport Authority, in line with the review of the Transport Authority Act, has made provision for the extension of the distance for route taxi licences. Until the new act [takes effect], these operators are in breach of the Road Traffic Act when they use their private vehicles to transport passengers.

“Further, the operators have not passed the fit-and-proper checks to ensure they can transport passengers safely,” she added.

Williams was also dismissive of suggestions by the unregistered cabbies that systemic regulations were to blame for Pusey’s actions in Monday’s chase.

“There is no excuse for this careless and reckless behaviour displayed by the driver as he sought to evade law enforcers and put the lives of so many innocent persons at risk. These are some of the dangers of using unlicensed vehicles,” she told The Gleaner.

But a cabbie argued that some buses cleared to operate on Kingston to St Mary routes have gone rogue. Having secured licences, busmen have been accused of selectively operating on only lucrative stretches of the routes, failing to service commuters located in Highgate and Port Maria.

“Dem apply, get the route, but use that fi run the bus from ‘Town’ (downtown Kingston) to Half-Way Tree to Stony Hill and Constant Spring and Golden Spring. Dem only a take the route and nah furnish the route, so we fill the gap with the taxi,” a cabbie said.

“No bus no run go Highgate! No bus no run go Port Maria! Only the [illegal] taxi!” he told The Gleaner.

Another driver has concerns that the voices of the unregistered cabbies are muffled because they are not part of a formal association through which it can lobby for reforms.

Recovery of a seized vehicle can cost up to $100,000, the robot cab drivers said.

They said Monday’s chase involving the taxi is not the first they have witnessed.

“Regardless, we nah support what the driver do, and we nah support what di police do. A driver knows the consequence of his actions,” one operator said.

ainsworth,morris@gleanerjm.com