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."