'Bus'-ted: Police intercept public-passenger vehicle operating off route

Monday morning traffic along a section of Red Hills Road, St Andrew, inched along like a golden ager plagued with arthritis.

'Ducta', who stood on the steps of his half-empty bus, was not in the mood for the crawl.

"Left pon my side," he instructed the driver, who complied by turning on a side road.

"Right pon your side," Ducta told the driver again. And again, the driver complied.

The bus, which plies the Chancery to downtown Kingston route, was now off course. The intention was to avoid the congestion on the designated route by using off roads and then squeezing back on to the proper route.

Ducta bragged that it's a popular practice of operators, but yesterday he would have no luck. Four policemen, all travelling on motorcycles, intercepted the bus and instructed the driver to pull over.

Spoke to passengers

One of the policemen requested that the driver disembark the bus. He also asked for the requisite documents and, on reading them, the policeman instructed one of his colleagues to speak with the passengers.

"Good morning, passengers. This bus is operating contrary to its road licence and we will have to make a decision whether we seize it. We are sorry for the inconvenience but it is for your safety," the policeman said.

He told the passengers that drivers and conductors sometimes collude with criminals to rob passengers on off roads.

Nearly 10 minutes later, the driver was allowed to go, but with a stern warning to return to the correct route. The driver even escaped without a ticket. The bus had hardly moved off when Ducta began unburdening himself.

"Dem bwoy deh a thief! ... . Dem a problem," he declared in a blistering attack on the policeman. "Dem just have a t'ing out fi busman."

Passenger's rebuke

The passengers would not have it.

"If them a t'ief, then you are a criminal," a young woman responded.

"You doing the wrong thing and don't expect anybody to talk to you," she added.

Her intervention was fuel for a rebuke against wrongdoing.

"Di police dem have di right fi go anywhere and do what dem want as long as dem a uphold the law!" a young man shouted.

But Ducta was adamant.

"Police a problem," he said.

However, he was the only dissenting voice, as most of the passengers joined the shouting match, unleashing an assault on wrongdoers.

"The day we allow the police to do dem work and di day we give dem less fi do is when Jamaica get better," a man commented.