– As errant minibus drivers protest hefty fines for breaking the law
ATTORNEY-General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Basil Williams, on Monday met with a group of errant minibus drivers, who assembled outside his Carmichael Street office, to protest the astronomical fines they’ve racked up for allegedly failing to adhere to the rules governing the bus parks at the Stabroek Market Square.
Several of the drivers who were charged after reportedly being caught in the act bore placards denouncing the use of CCTV cameras at the bus parks to catch them out when they pick up passengers in unauthorised areas on the parks, a practice that is widely referred to as ‘hot-plating’, meaning that they don’t comply with the rules.
The drivers also allege that one particular magistrate is especially harsh when handing down fines because of his bias against errant minibus drivers.
The issue of minibuses picking up passengers in undesignated areas at the bus park has long been one on which minibus drivers are widely divided, as while some argue that the police should go lighter on those breaking the rules, those drivers who adhere to the established line system are of the view that the police should do even more to stop errant minibuses from disenfranchising those who obey the rules.
Minister Williams, in no uncertain terms, told the picketing drivers that he cannot support their actions since they are unquestionably breaking the law. He, however, committed to facilitate a meeting between the drivers and the police, in a bid to avoid having them placed in the lockups until the fines are paid.
“I can’t encourage that, but I will try to encourage dialogue with you and the police so you could arrive at a proper solution, Minister Williams said.
He added:“They shouldn’t give you the maximum. You can’t have 10 video discs and you putting the maximum for each one. You have to deal with the law with some sort of compassion also. It is the government’s policy not to clog up the prison system; and the system is clogged up when you put people for minor offences in the prison, and obviously it’s a policy we’re working on and judicial notice has to be taken of the policy to reduce the prison population.”
Once found guilty, minibus drivers are fined from $7000 to $30,000 per charge, and are usually held until the fines are paid.
The drivers had decided to protest on Monday, after one of their own was last week fined $25,000 per charge on nine separate charges. He had breached his road service licence by picking up passengers in several undesignated areas.
Compton Rocke related that last Wednesday, after attending court and being fined, he was held at the Brickdam Police Station until all $225,000 in fines was paid.
Rocke explained that the police approached him at the bus park last week and took him to the station where he was shown the nine video discs of separate incidents.
“They come and pick me up from the park about a week ago. They take me into Brickdam and bring out the
discs, put them in and we start to view it, showing my conductor picking up passengers while driving around Demico House. When we go to court, the magistrate read out the charge. He said: ‘Guilty or not?’ I say guilty because you see it on the camera, so how I going lie? After I say that, he said each of the charge is $25,000. So they put me in the lock up right away, so I had to find this money immediately before I get release”, Rock explained.
Speaking on behalf of the drivers, Hubert Thomas-Alexander said: “It’s not just about the fines, there are also unsubstantiated charges. “We have various concerns, not just the high fines. Sometimes one person signing to one charge and then there are additional charges when you face the court,” Thomas-Alexander said.
He pointed out, too, that when the CCTV camera records a minibus disobeying the rules, it doesn’t always show who is driving the minibus at the recorded time. Some of the minibus drivers charged have denied that they were the ones driving the vehicle on the day that the violation was recorded. They claimed that they were just driving the bus the day the police pulled them in.
Driver Quacy Sealey says he has no idea who drove the bus on the date police say a breach was recorded, but he was pulled over by police on January 31.
“They stop me on Regent Street [as I was] driving, they ask me, ‘Where is the driver from the day before?’ I said I don’t know where that driver deh, today is me day fuh wuk. And they tell me empty off my vehicle and drive to the station. I said I gon drop off my passengers and then I gon report to the station. When I report to the station they say they gon charge me with failing to comply with the police direction. I told them I have no problem with that but when they took me to court there were two charges there; failing to comply with police direction and breach of road service licence,” Sealey explained.
Another driver, Andrew Jackson, in relating his story said that in his case he had started driving a bus on January 9, but the police have sought to charge him for offences committed on November 8, 2018 and January 8, 2019.
Minister Williams suggested that in such cases, instead of holding the drivers, perhaps the police should address the owners of the vehicles. He noted, however, that such a situation would still be unfair to the owners who have to pay for the driver’s mistake.
“This offence is really against the bus you know, so when they catch the bus, they just pull in somebody, it really should be the owner. Still, that is not fair to the owner, though, if the owner is not driving”, Williams added.
