Police said on Wednesday that they were still investigating the jitney accident a day earlier that resulted in 11 people being injured and had made no decision regarding whether any charges will be brought in the matter.
Nine children were among those injured in the mishap.
The Bernard Road accident renewed fears some people have about using the public transportation system in New Providence. Earlier this week, there had also been reports that shots were fired aboard a jitney during a robbery.
Earlier this year, three people, including a British citizen, were reportedly injured aboard a jitney after they claimed that the bus driver and his friends took them on a terror ride.
It led to the British High Commission in The Bahamas recommending that the travel advisory on The Bahamas be revised to warn UK citizens about the dangers of traveling aboard buses on New Providence on certain routes and at certain times.
Several months before that a young Haitian woman claimed that she was assaulted aboard a bus in South Beach.
For many people, these incidents speak to what they feel is a system out of control.
But some bus drivers on Wednesday said that it is unfortunate that so many bus drivers are getting a bad name after a few “isolated” incidents.
“We must win the confidence of the people in the community,” said one bus driver, who spoke to The Bahama Journal on Wednesday.
Another driver, who gave his name only as Joe, said that despite what many people think, the vast majority of drivers obey traffic laws.
He noted however that because of the ‘hustle’, some bus drivers take risks that they should not take.
The jitney driver also believes emphasis should be placed on drivers of private vehicles who also drive recklessly and then try and shift the blame onto jitney drivers.
“You’ve got these private cars doing the same thing they say buses are doing, but nobody is talking about that,” Joe said. “How I see it, they should not beat all bus driver with the same stick because there are some jitney driver who don’t drive bad.”
Another driver said that many drivers are pressured to meet profit expectations from their employers and so they resort to aggressive behaviour on the streets of New Providence.
He believes that if the government would put in place the long-promised organized bus system, many of the problems involving bus drivers would be solved.
“I feel the government should form the [public transportation] corporation,” he said. “It will more or less control the drivers. The reason for that is right now there is a dog race out here for drivers to collect money for employers-That’s the reason why we have all this turmoil out here.”
Permanent Secretary in The Ministry of Transport and Aviation Archie Nairn admitted on Wednesday that the current bus system is a fragmented one and that it is very difficult to deal with more than 200 bus drivers.
He said that his Ministry is focusing on putting in place strategic programmes related to safety on public buses.
“In the next few weeks we will be putting forward messages by way of the electronic and print media on safety,” Mr. Nairn said.
He noted that Minister of Transport and Aviation Glenys Hanna-Martin has appointed a committee that is responsible for collecting data that would ultimately be the building blocks for a proposed authority that will oversee the public transportation system.
Mr. Nairn said police and Road Traffic officials cannot be everywhere at once.
“We want the public to be on the lookout for those bus drivers who may be abusing the system and report those who are,” Mr. Nairn said. “We are asking that persons report the bus number, time of incident, bus name and route so that follow up action can be taken by the Road Traffic Department.”
By: Stephen Gay, The Bahama Journal
