Dear Editor,
I write out of concern for a pattern that has become disturbingly normal.
On Saturday, 21 February, after 6 p.m., during a journey between Parika and Uitvlugt, the taxi-bus in which I was travelling overtook another vehicle on a bend at high speed with limited visibility, while loud music filled the vehicle. My partner and I repeatedly asked the driver to slow down. We were ignored. Fearing for our lives, we shouted for him to stop and disembarked. We did not pay for the portion completed, as we could not in good conscience support conduct that endangered passengers.
There were infants on board. Their crying was instinctive.
My partner is European; I am Guyanese to the bone living the life at home with affection and pride. It is precisely because I care that I find it troubling how such recklessness has become accepted. Those who rely most on public transport — often citizens of modest means — have the least protection from it.
As Guyana assumes greater international visibility, everyday practices shape our national reputation. Visitors and returning nationals form impressions not from speeches, but from lived experience — including what happens on our roads.
Safe transportation should not be a privilege. Consistent enforcement of traffic laws — including plainclothes police officers riding on public buses to monitor compliance, routine speed monitoring, and mandatory alcohol testing of public transport drivers — are safeguards of dignity and equality.
We should not wait for tragedy to compel action.