I was pretty happy to read in today's Observer that a step has been made towards fixing the Bogue intersection. Work should be completed within a year and the contractor says that he plans to do a lot of the work at night, which should help to minimize the disruption. 

On another note, the issue of abortion has kind of been a hot topic these days, with pro-lifers playing shock-and-"eew" videos in a bid to convince parlimentarians not to legalize abortion.

Personally, I don't understand why pro-lifers want to dictate to the rest of the country what a woman should do with an unwanted pregnancy. Okay, so they believe that life begins at conception and that it's murder to abort a fetus, even within the first trimester. I get that. What I don't get is why they think that everyone else should subscribe to their belief. If you think abortion is immoral, then don't have one. Don't donate money to or support abortion rights groups. Why should the thousands of other women who don't share your belief be forced to carry a pregnancy to term, regardless of whether or not the mother and/or father are emotionally or financially able to provide a decent quality of life for the resultant child or if the pregnancy was a result of rape, incest or molestation?

That decision should rest with the mother, since she's likely going to be responsible for that child for the better part of the next 20 years, and not with some lobbyist who feels like a bunch of 10 cells is a human life. 

Now I'm not supporting abortion as a preferred method of birth control, I think it should be a last resort, but the option shouldn't be taken off of the table because of the beliefs of a group of citizens. Banning abortions tramples on woman's reproductive rights and is just as bad as forcing women to have an abortion. 

Legalizing abortion, with some measure of oversight, lets both sides have their way. Those who think it's wrong can feel free to not have one, and those who want or need that option are free to go down that road.

Rain, rain go away

The rains that lashed Montego Bay on Friday night (Oct. 31st) have brought to light, once again, the chaos that is Montego Bay's infrastructure. Horror stories about journeys that should take 30 minutes taking upwards of 5 hours were relayed by text message, phone calls and status messages on Facebook.  Commuters were stranded downtown for hours because the taxis were stuck in traffic that finally cleared up at around 11pm.

Every time it rains the city comes to a standstill. Why is that?

In my opinion, there are two main causes. The first is the testament to short-sightedness and lack of forward planning that is the Fairview intersection. I've ranted about this eighth wonder of the world in a previous post, so let's just say despite all the lobbying that has been done, despite the fact that the government started work on the intersection and promised to complete it by a date that's long gone, it's still there and still creating headaches for commuters.

The second cause is the fact that Mobay drivers in general, and Mobay taxi drivers in particular, are among the worst in the world, bar none. They run red lights, create three or four lanes on roads meant for one, refuse to wait in the turning lane, overtake around corners only to come to a screeching halt in the midddle of the road three seconds later when the lady walking down the road kinda look like she want a taxi, don't use indicators or have brake lights and on top of it all, tell you all manner of bad wud when you refuse to let them cut into the line of traffic that you've been patiently waiting in for three hours. 

What that behaviour means is that, in addition to a poorly designed traffic system, you have a legion of "drivers", and I use the term very loosely, who, among other things, clog intersections by refusing to obey the traffic lights, and overtake by any means necessary to get one car length ahead. The resultant effect is what happened on Friday, and what happens on a smaller scale every rush hour.

So what's the solution? Immediately ban all drivers found breaching certain sections of the road code from owning, operating or even looking at a car for five years? Tempting. Very tempting.

The first step is to lobby Mike Henry to stop the damn foolishness and fix the traffic system in Mobay. Not just the Fairview intersection, but the whole traffic system. It's retarded. There's a traffic center that's close to a "highway" but you can only turn one way onto the highway, which means that hundreds of taxis and buses make a u-turn at the traffic light down the road, which blocks the intersection.

There are intersections with two turn signals when only one lane should turn, which creates confusion. There are intersections with turn signals for roads that are used once or twice a year.  Most of the signals seemed to be timed rather than triggered bythe presence or absence of traffic.  

Once we fix that, THEN we can ban all drivers found breaching certain sections of the road code from owning, operating or even looking at a car. Zero tolerance should be the order of the day.

You drove on the sidewalk? Banned!

You overtook a line of traffic around a corner while carrying eight passengers in your five seater? Banned!

You have more than one ticket for driving without brake lights? Banned!

You operating a taxi without the necessary road license? Banned!

You drove while you were banned? Straight prison!

The safety and sanity of all us require that something be done now. Email Mike Henry at clarendon-c@jamaicalabourparty.com and let him know how you feel. 

If anyone has another email address for him please let me know.

What's wrong with this picture?

Does anyone else remember when you could go down to Negril, drive right onto the beach and spend the day relaxing? When you could have a picnic at one of the scenic views on the way? Now many of Jamaica's best beaches are "private property" and if you aren't staying at a hotel you can only walk along the water's edge. We can't even enjoy a scenic view anymore. 

Shouldn't our children be guaranteed access to Jamaica's beaches? Don't we owe it to them not sell any more of our beaches outright to developers, whether local or foreign, for the sake of investment? 

Did you know that in Barbados access to all beaches is a right, and that you can only own land up to the high water mark? Why isn't it the same in Jamaica? 

Mike Henry's visit to Mobay

He came, he saw, and there's no money in the budget so it looks like we'll be stuck in traffic for a loooong time. Thanks Omar!

One gun salute

After reading about a police officer's gun salute for his fallen colleague, two questions came to mind.

The first was "if a police officer broke the law so brazenly in the presence of the commissioner, what has he been doing when no one was around?" The answer to that question can probably be be found somewhere in the plethora of stories about extra-judicial killings, bribery, murder-for-hire, drug-running, and various other illegal activities "allegedly" carried out by the police.

The second question was "why did the commissioner have to order other police officers to arrest the trigger happy cop?" You would have thought that, given the number of police officers that must have been at the funeral, the man would have been arrested before the shells hit the ground!

The underlying issue here is the calibre of people that are recruited into the police force and the resultant behaviour of the graduates of the academy. Any man on the street can tell you some kind of story about the police, whether it's suffering a beating or worse for no apparent reason, being called "bwoy" by a cop 20 years younger than you are, being asked to "buy a rounds fi the squaddies" in lieu of a speeding ticket, or suffering the piss poor customer service that most Jamaicans have sadly come to expect from police on all levels. I say most because, as we all know, if you're rich or related to a police officer then things are very, very different.

A big part of the solution to Jamaica's crime problem is getting citizens to cooperate with the police. That won't happen if the police continue to treat the lives and issues of the very people they're sworn to protect with contempt. Simply increasing the size of the force or giving them bigger guns or more cars or giving them a raise of pay won't solve the problem. The fact of the matter is that we need better police officers.

We need more police officers who have more than just a basic education. We need more police officers who can speak standard English. We need more police officers who truly want to serve the citizens of Jamaica. We need more police officers who know how to act professionally and responsibly, even when the people they're interacting with don't. We need more police officers who will do the job for which they were hired - to "serve, protect and reassure with courtesy, integrity and proper respect for the rights of all."

The eighth wonder of the world

The amount of thought put into urban planning in Jamaica never ceases to amaze me. Case in point - the Fairview intersection in Montego Bay. This is the finest example of traffic engineering and planning that I've seen in quite some time.

Imagine this; you have two lanes of traffic coming from Alice Eldemire Drive and two lanes coming from another road (no, I don't know the name of the other road - sue me) all trying to get out of Montego Bay. In a feat that would astound Pierre-Charles L'Enfant, the designers of the highway have managed to merge four lanes of traffic into one in a distance of about a hundred feet!

There are a few side effects caused by this eighth wonder of the world, but turning a five minute commute from Freeport to Bogue into a thirty minute journey, causing a buildup of traffic that stretches from Bogue to the airport on the other side of the city, and forcing commuters to sit in traffic for two hours on a Friday afternoon (four if it rains) are quite acceptable when compared to the sheer brilliance of the intersection's design.

Indeed, even the police officers assigned to direct traffic at the intersection during rush hour (7 -10 am and 4 - 8 pm) seem awestruck by the design, so much so that they are rendered incapable of directing traffic effectively and can only feebly wave cars on while sitting on their bikes or talking on their cell phones. They are often so overcome with emotion that they have to leave the intersection early, knowing that the hundreds of people who have been waiting in line for hours will understand.

Mr. Henry, please come to Mobay and make it a point to visit the intersection any time after 4 pm. You'll be glad you did!

A new course?

So Mr. Golding has taken the reins of power with promises of a new, better course, a course that will take Jamaica to a place where "not everyone may be rich, but no-one has to be poor." One hopes that the swearing in of this government will mark the start of a new chapter in Jamaican politics where there is more positive action than rhetoric and one in which the rights and interests of the Jamaican people will be protected and pursued respectively. We've all heard lots and lots of promises in the past from both parties, and the first hundred days of Mr. Golding's stewardship will be watched closely by the public, many of whom suspect that he may have bought his license and are therefore doubtful of his "driving ability".

To his credit, Orett appears to be on the right track so far, with promises of reducing government red tape and abolishing transfer taxes scoring him brownie points with the private sector and the middle class and plans to work more closely with the opposition than previous administrations silencing some of his detractors for now. It's still early though, and we'll all be watching the construction of Mr. Golding's course very closely to see if it turns out to be an eight lane highway to prosperity or a dirt track to the politics of yester-year.