Fast, furious and frightening - Route taxi terror

Mel Cooke, Sunday Gleaner Writer

The reporter is at the bus stop outside St Richard's Primary School on Red Hills Road, St Andrew, for less than a minute before the beckoning beep of a horn heralds the availability of a route taxi, heading towards Half-Way Tree.

That ubiquitous 'white Corolla' is allowed to go, a green Camry the ride of choice arrives about 20 seconds after at 4:44 p.m.

With the traffic building up going in the other direction, the taxi sticks to the designated route, but the quality of the ride is rated three 'fs' - fast, furious and frightening.

The driver brakes very late and very hard; he likes to play bumper cars - well almost - with the car he is currently adding to his 'been-there-passed-that' list, swinging at the last minute to avoid collision.

The car's speedometer is not working, but Red Hills Road landmarks Lee's Food Fair and Calabar High School flit by the window with a blur which indicates that the speed limit - highway one, that is - is no shackle to the driver.

On the car stereo a deejay is chanting "when we touch the road we touch it hard", but The Sunday Gleaner gets the distinct impression that the driver touches the road to the same degree, regardless of the current soundtrack.

Turning onto Constant Spring Road brings out the real beast in the driver - he stops so near to a Corolla's bumper that from the back seat the two cars appear fused into a unique Toyota hybrid.

The driver of a brown BMW dares to try changing into the route taxi's lane; the driver blares his horn, swings around the car and blows past the malls on the lower part of Constant Spring Road, pulling into the Total gas station which is literally overrun by route taxis.

Two-lane swing

The reporter hands over a 'bills' (i.e. $100), the driver returns a $20 coin, his facial scar smiling. The journey has taken six minutes.

The return trip starts from the same Total station at 5:12 p.m., when the evening traffic is building up along Eastwood Park Road. It does not restrict the dreadlocked driver, who does an abrupt two-lane swing from extreme left to extreme right just after Courtney Walsh Drive, then does the reverse just before the turn-off to Red Hills Road.

It seems that his horn is the driver's best friend, because he converses with it constantly. Near 31 Red Hills Road the driver goes around three cars that have stopped because a large black pick-up is turning right. The driver avoids the truck and speeds ahead - only to end up in a traffic jam.

He tries to 'undertake' a car near the Cassia Park intersection, but is thwarted by an uncooperative motorist, who sets her jaw and pulls up to the bumper of the car in front of her. It is a challenge the dreadlocked daredevil cannot resist and, just outside Calabar High School he does the between car stunt, creating a third lane (at extreme high speed) - all for the sole purpose of joining a line of traffic at the Elizabeth Avenue intersection.

Still, he manages to squeeze in an 'undertake' and seems satisfied at last.

At the foot of Whitehall Avenue, he pulls over as he makes the turn and gives that irritating 'come around' finger movement, not found in any driver's handbook - and although he is clearly blocking traffic a police car is among those which duly pull around. The car pulls into the Shell gas station on Mannings Hill Road at 5:28 p.m.