Transport operators urged take steps to ensure their safety

By Kimone Witter    

 

Advocacy groups representing transport operators are again imploring their members to install security devices on their vehicles to protect themselves against criminals.

 

It comes after a taxi operator who was reported missing after being engaged for a charter service from Red Hills Road to Old Harbour was found dead last week.

 

According to the police, 58-year-old Milton Davis, of a Waterford, St. Catherine address, was reported missing on February 13. His body was found with the throat slashed on February 15 in bushes near Century Farms in Old Harbour.

 

His vehicle was not found.

 

Egeton Newman, head of the Transport Operators Development Sustainable Services (TODSS), said eight transport operators, including a woman, have been killed since January.

 

Another was shot and wounded. 

 

"The government cannot provide security for the taximan. And the criminals out there, if they're not extortionists, I don't know what else they are. But they are now on the backs of the public transport sector. We're making nothing already, and because we have the dollar between our fingers, which I urge our operators not to do, then people find a way to take out our lives because they think we're making money," Mr. Newman bemoaned. 

 

President of the St. James Taxi Association, Dion Chance, said transport operators should pay more attention to their personnel safety. 

 

"So I want to take this opportunity to encourage the operators islandwide, to as best as possible, install trackers on their vehicle. Have a loved one have that app on their phone, just in case that you don't show up at home at the time that you normally show up, and they start reaching out to you and not getting any answer, that they track the vehicle and report it to the police."  

 

Transport operators are also being urged to work closely with the police despite their differences. 

 

Mr. Chance is concerned that the targeting of transport operators has become a trend.

 

He has called for the police to be vigilant in investigating crimes perpetrated against them.

 

"Taximen are taxpayers as well. So I want to say to the police, be very diligent in your investigation. Be very thorough. And wherever the leads take you, follow them. Because just like any other crime, if it keeps happening and the perpetrators keep getting away, it's going to become more and more prevalent. So I just want to say to the police, put some effort into this one," he pleaded.

 

Mr. Chance and Mr. Newman were speaking Tuesday on the Morning Agenda on Power 106.