Please ban music in Public Service vans!

23.OCT.09

Editor: I am pleading with the government authorities who hold our constitutional rights in the palm of their hands to clamp down once and for all on the loud and indecent music that the travelling public is subjected to morning and evening.{{more}}

It is unfair. It is disgusting. It is disrespectful.

Whatever type of music a bus driver or conductor wishes to listen to represents their choice and their constitutional right. But they do not have that right to disrespectfully impose upon the travelling public, their style or concept of music. You and I have the right not to listen to such and such an artiste or to such and such kind of music.

Furthermore, there is no consideration and respect given to the health and soundness of the commuters’ eardrums; not even to a newborn child held in his mother’s arms. I am an adult and I have had my ears hurt from this loud music in these buses.

Our school kids are subjected to this type of sick outpouring of lyrics everyday and this is damaging to them. What kind of society are we creating? Is this how we are shaping the minds of the men and women of tomorrow for a better SVG?

Bus drivers and conductors get offended, hostile and resistant when you ask them to turn down the music.

When you approach your drop-off point, no one could hear you say “stop!” You have to touch someone to touch the conductor in order to get his attention. I have seen where a bus driver turned the music down to talk to someone in the van. After his nice long talk, he turned the music back up.

Mr. Government, all is not well out here in the public domain with those of us without private transportation. I am appealing to you to ban once and for all music in buses. Save our eardrums and our sanity, I beg of you.

John T. Public