Bus stand crackdown

THERE WERE long lines of traffic at the Nursery Drive and Cheapside terminals in Bridgetown yesterday morning, but not because of the usual rush by commuters.
Police and traffic inspectors from the Ministry of Transport and Works (MTW) descended on the terminals from around 9 a.m. to carry out inspections of public service vehicles (PSVs).
Routine checks were made of documents such as permits, insurance and road tax certificates and those whose documents were not in order were sent to the ministry’s offices.
A number of vehicles were also pulled off the road for infractions such as broken licence plates, absence of fire extinguishers, broken bumpers and vehicles generally not being in a roadworthy state.
Those vehicles were sent to the MTW for inspection.
But Judy Forde of Trade Advisory Services, which provides professional advice for operators of PSVs, said her investigations revealed that MTW records were not up to date.
Over at Cheapside, a concerned route taxi driver said he believed inspections should take place on a regular basis and that police should patrol the busy terminal more often because of what he called “rebelling”.
“We have sent letters to the Commissioner of Police and MTW complaining about men out here who does rebel,” said the driver, who did not want to give his name. “They does drive in and bore to the top of the line and pick up passengers and by the time they get to Grazettes and back the person that they passed in the line still there waiting.” He said that the “rebelling” was taking place mainly on the No. 4 Grazettes and the No. 3 Wanstead routes.
“Those men make twice or three times as much as other men . . . This is a very big problem out here.” (MB)