Each to each a looking glass...
As intrepid travelers along the route between Linden and Georgetown, we often-times reflect on the reasons why we choose each others’ company in lieu of the convenient inconvenience of public transportation. Today’s ride bore evidence of the reasons for this choice in ways that I would much prefer to put into questions, rhetorical or not (feel free to add your own questions):
1) When a minibus conductor puts half of his body outside of the window of his vehicle, or worse still, sticks that imperious finger outside signalling that he WILL pass your vehicle and come to an abruptly slowed pace in a space that cannot accommodate a baby’s carriage much less a bus, what does he really expect you to do?
2. When a hire-car driver proceeds to overtake the entire line of five or six vehicles behind you without considering that there are still six others ahead of you and no way to pass them before the container hauler bearing down on him in the next lane hits him head on, would it be bad manners to NOT hit your brakes so rashly that the entire line of traffic behind you gets thrown into confusion just so that the overtaking car could squeeze in just inches from your front bumper?
3. When you approach the Demerara Harbour Bridge where the government has recently constructed a beautiful pedestrian overpass and where at the times we pass there are always about four traffic police standing in the intersection waving you on, do you really need to come to a complete halt to allow young men and women to run across said intersection?
4. Has ANYONE in Guyana ever been charged and/or convicted for jay-walking?
5. When travelling at night, is it really that difficult to lower the intensity of your headlights as you approach oncoming traffic?
6. Do drivers really need to flip their lights nonstop between high and low every two seconds for three minutes as they proceed to pass oncoming traffic?
7. IMPORTANTLY: Why won’t the Guyana Police Force charge the drivers of haul trucks who travel along the Linden Soesdyke Highway with the WHITE cargo lights at the rear on all the way, ensuring that others drivers can hardly tell if they are coming or going and blinding you completely as you overtake them since most of these lights shine directly into your eyes at the rear or across the adjacent lane of traffic?
8. Again, why are drivers who add those blinding LED spotlights not addressed in some manner that would remove that hazard from our roadways?
9. If you are a driver of public transportation, on your last working trip for the evening heading home, do you really need to travel at 160 kph or more? Are you late for dinner?
10. Why, oh why do passengers sit and endure all of this and more from drivers, and PAY these drivers to endanger their lives, without saying a word? Are you really that polite, muzzled or disenfranchised?
