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Saturday, February 22, 2025

Red band maxi drivers say no shutdown of service

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1113 days ago
20220204
Red band maxi taxis at City Gate, South Quay, Port-of-Spain.

Red band maxi taxis at City Gate, South Quay, Port-of-Spain.

KERWIN PIERRE

A planned protest by Route 2 Maxi Taxi op­er­a­tors call­ing for more se­cu­ri­ty was can­celled on Fri­day and the as­so­ci­a­tion rep­re­sent­ing the dri­vers are ap­peal­ing to them to re­port in­ci­dents of crime to the as­so­ci­a­tion and the po­lice.

The ac­tion comes af­ter the maxi op­er­a­tor Earl Grif­fith was shot in the face by ban­dits one week ago. Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Grif­fith was ply­ing his maxi on the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route in the vicin­i­ty of Tenth Av­enue, Barataria, when a ban­dit en­tered his maxi and said it was a hold up.

Grif­fith re­port­ed­ly pushed the ban­dit out of the maxi but the gun­man shot Grif­fith.

Grif­fith drove to Mor­vant Junc­tion where he saw po­lice of­fi­cers at a con­struc­tion site and they as­sist­ed him to get to the hos­pi­tal.

He is cur­rent­ly ward­ed in hos­pi­tal in a sta­ble but crit­i­cal con­di­tion.

Route 2 Maxi Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Li­nus Phillip, speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, said the ac­tion by the dri­vers was not sanc­tioned by the as­so­ci­a­tion and the as­so­ci­a­tion has al­so placed a dis­claimer on so­cial me­dia that they were not part of the ac­tion.

He said dri­vers are emo­tion­al about the in­ci­dent but shut­ting down the ser­vice will not serve right for the gen­er­al pub­lic and the ap­proach to deal with in­ci­dents of crime against dri­vers while ply­ing the route must be one that will yield a fruit­ful out­come.

He said, “The chal­lenge we have with our op­er­a­tors is that many of them are not re­port­ing in­ci­dents of rob­bery, we have avail our op­er­a­tors with a book at our of­fice for them to re­port in­ci­dents as well as to go to the po­lice but this has not been hap­pen­ing.”

Phillip added, “Once dri­vers do this it will al­low the as­so­ci­a­tion to be able to raise con­cerns on their be­half with the au­thor­i­ties on se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters on the bus route.”

Phillip not­ed that if the as­so­ci­a­tion has no da­ta of in­ci­dents this can­not help the “pro­tec­tive ser­vices to serve our in­ter­est and to quell the in­ci­dents along the route.”

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that one fe­male dri­ver was robbed and the ban­dits threat­en her if she made a po­lice re­port about the in­ci­dent.

Li­nus said Grif­fith is cur­rent­ly in need of blood and came off the ven­ti­la­tor at the hos­pi­tal.

He fur­ther not­ed that the as­so­ci­a­tion and oth­er mem­bers are prepar­ing to sup­port Grif­fith’s fam­i­ly in this try­ing time.

He said it makes no sense tak­ing ac­tion to shut down their ser­vice at this time.


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