Windscreen wipers settle into Liguanea

Chad Bryan, Gleaner Writer

Motorists who stop at the traffic lights at the intersection of Barbican, Old Hope and Hope roads in Liguanea, St Andrew, are often approached (or beset) by young men who wish to clean their windscreens - for a price, of course.

Although now a fixture in Half-Way Tree and Three Miles, the windscreen cleaners are relatively new to Liguanea, but are now becoming an accepted part of the landscape.

Often dressed in merinos of different colours, T-shirts, shorts and jeans, equipped with cleaning brushes, bottles and sometimes pails of water, they dart in between and along stationary vehicles.

Last Tuesday, in the heat of the morning sun, one young man tried his luck - unsuccessfully - at cleaning a motorist's windscreen. Undaunted, he proceeded along the short line of traffic and was finally successful at cleaning the windshield of a very large vehicle, whose driver handed over a few dollars.

However, some of the windscreen cleaners were less than compliant with the requests of motorists to not clean their windscreens.

MOTORIST COMPLAINTS

A police officer from the Matilda's Corner Police Station explained that there have been a number of complaints from motorists about the men's behaviour. "We get complaints about the street guys at the light. When we send them on to court, they come back out. The mad ones, when we send them on to Bellevue, they treat them and send them back out. Their family doesn't want to take care of them or accept them," the officer said.

He said that charges such as failure to keep on moving and malicious destruction of property can be laid against the men, depending on the situation.

"For example, you may say to one, 'Luke, you need to remove', and if he comes back and doesn't move we charge them with failing to move and keep on moving," the policeman said. "If somebody comes and make a report and can identify them that they have maliciously destroyed a vehicle in any form, such as if they take off the wiper, that's malicious destruction of property," the officer pointed out.