Red Hills Road robots a menace

Lane communities protect drivers from police

With the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) firmly establishing itself coming to the turn of the millennium, On October 21, 1999, The Gleaner reported that 14,000 persons had applied for route taxi licences. At that time, 9,000 had been approved.

A route taxi is defined as "a public-passenger vehicle which seats no more than 10 passengers. These vehicles operate by taking up and setting down passengers at all bus stops along a specified route".

It is impossible to know how many taxi operators who use Red Hills Road to travel from Chancery Street and Mannings Hill Road to Half-Way Tree and back have applied for a licence in the 12 years since the permits were granted or obey the bus stop requirement.

It is certain, though, that many are a menace to other motorists and the people they transport.

On Friday, May 20, this year The Gleaner printed a letter in which a Baron Marshall outlined his encounter with a taxi on Red Hills Road. He wrote:

"I am appealing to the authorities to do something about the reckless driving by taxi operators along the Red Hills Road corridor, particularly in front of Calabar High School and Calabar Mews. On the morning of May 19, I experienced a near miss when two speeding taxicabs, one barrelling down the wrong side of the road, almost collided with my vehicle as I exited Calabar Mews with two young children aboard.

This sort of behaviour by public-transport operators plying the Chancery Street to Half-Way Tree route has been going on for years. At times, police personnel patrol the route, but clearly not enough, or the penalties for driving recklessly and operating outside Transport Authority regulations are not harsh enough to discourage the behaviour."

Snr Supt Radcliffe Lewis, who is in charge of the Traffic Division with headquarters on Lower Elletson Road, Kingston, knows very well that it is an area of serious concern, even before he started working in traffic.

"You have taxi drivers, they live on Red Hills Road. They drive robot. They drive in the middle of the road in the morning and the middle of the road in the evening. And we have taken away their cars and sometimes they are severely punished," Lewis said.

But, the respite has been very fleeting. "Sometimes all two, three months them don't get the car. And you see when them get it, they do the same thing all over again," he said.

In addition, in a recent interview he pointed to the element of community protection. "When they are being pursued by the police, they go straight into those areas and then now you have, especially some women, and is like they on the lookout. As they drive in these cars and the police drive in, they block the road and after that is pure gunshots," Lewis said.

The present strategy, which has helped significantly, is to have police officers stationed on the road at peak hours at strategic intersections, as well as driving along the trouble stretch.

Red Hills Road stands nearly alone as a taxi trouble spot in the Corporate Area. "We don't have much problem with route taxis that travel along Maxfield Avenue to Half-Way Tree or Waltham Park Road into the downtown area. They have not been giving problems like Red Hills Road," Lewis said.

However, he said "we have problems along Half-Way Tree to Papine". It is not only a matter of speeding for which Hope Road is notorious, but also the crowing and indiscipline at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) entrance.