Minibus Association – Get cracking

08.FEB.08

Editor: It’s time for you to get serious about protecting our van drivers and conductors. I am tired of hearing of them being robbed, so these are my suggestions to you:{{more}}

(1) Start printing bus tickets. Make them in three denominations 50 cents, $1.00 and $2.00 with each denomination a different colour. Make them about the size of cinema tickets. (You can order these by the roll.)

(2) Insist that people riding vans pay with these tickets and NOT money.

(3) Warn the public to buy tickets only from designated vendors

(4) Issue minibus owners/drivers with Id cards.

(5) Exchange the bus tickets for cash ONLY:

(a) at your office

(b) with the presence of an Id card

(c) after the person collecting has signed a book/receipt identifying how many tickets were handed in and how much money was collected in exchange.

I believe that if these provisions are put into place, the robbers would be less inclined to pull away the van’s purse, since it would be full of tickets (not money), and these tickets could only be redeemed using Id cards and signatures.

Have faith in us. Vincentians are not stupid people. We understand how to use tickets instead of money. Primary school children use them at fairs. (They call them chits, not tickets.)

After driving up and down the same boring road all day sometimes from 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., it is really unfair for our van drivers and conductors to be shot at and robbed of whatever they’ve managed to earn.

Lisa