Bike taxis take over Negril party weekend

Hasani Walters, Sunday Gleaner Writer

It was by no means the usual engine-revving, muffler-roaring, crowd-cheering type of bike show, but it was a spectacle that managed to create a similar awe.

Hundreds of bikers zoomed up and down the Negril hip strip over the course of the Independence weekend party series, skilfully evading and manoeuvring the dense traffic as partygoers tried to get home or to their hotel after each party.

As is customary each year around this time, the bikers were out to "hustle a money".

"Pon a general, yuh have bike taxi weh run a Negril. But when it come roun to ATI time, yuh have man weh will all rent di bike dem and work di road a carry people," Rupert, a taxi driver, told Automotives.

Rupert went on to explain: "Like how inna town, yuh have man weh have nuff taxi pon di road. A suh it work dung yah wid some a di man dem. Dem buy some bike an gi di youth fi work it."

Rupert said he knew one biker who once told him that his boss only wanted "five gran' a week so anything outside a that a fi him".

Dale, who has been riding in Negril for the past three years, confirmed these arrangements.

DRAWBACKS

While the bikers have made it considerably easier for patrons who would otherwise have to walk or crawl in traffic to their destination, the set-up has its drawbacks.

Rupert and other taxi drivers with whom Automotives spoke said deaths from bike crashes are the most common types of road fatalities in the area. Over the Independence weekend, at least one fatality occurred from a bike-taxi trip.

Adrenaline flowing, the riders were almost always busy carrying passengers - all this without the use of helmets. It made for quite a show, minus all the official fanfare - just car horns blaring signalling a biker to get out of the way, or bike horns blaring signalling pedestrians to step aside on Negril's hip strip.