Tuesday, November 18. At about 5:20 pm Half-Way-Tree is teeming with people, most of them commuters engaged in the daily jostle that characterises their efforts to get home after a long day at work or school.

We watch from a distance, people gathered at the Total service station across from the Half-Way-Tree Transport Centre, the legitimate bus hub run by the state.

Taxis – some licensed, others illegal and referred to as robots or white plates – pull up at the service station and leave quickly with full loads of passengers.

A two-door Suzuki Vitara – obviously not licensed as a public passenger vehicle – stops and passengers pile in. It is here that taxis plying the Half-Way-Tree to Price Rite and Half-Way-Tree to Whitehall routes converge.

It is now 5:25 pm. We decide that enough persons have gathered at the gas station for us to make our move.

I sit in the front of the Toyota Probox so that our prospective ‘passengers’ will feel comfortable getting into the vehicle.

The driver winds his window down as we pull up to the entrance of the gas station, just like we had observed the other taxi drivers do earlier.

Not even a second goes by before a young lady approaches the vehicle and asks if the car was heading to Price Rite.

“Yes,” says the driver.

She gets into the car with a female companion. They seem to be in their 20s.

Another woman who appears to be in her late 30s asks the young ladies if we are headed to Price Rite. They say “yes”.

She gets in and closes the car door.

The driver moves off and heads down North Odeon Avenue onto Eastwood Park Road.

We drive past three police officers.

They ignore us.

As we drive up to the traffic light near Half-Way-Tree Primary School, the two young ladies mumble to each other while the older woman remains quiet.

I turn around and say “Good afternoon ladies. I am from the Jamaica Observer. I am doing a story about robot taxis. Can I ask you a few questions? By the way, this is not a real taxi, this is an Observer vehicle.”

They erupt into laughter. The oldest of the three covers her mouth.

“Oh my God, I am so ashamed,” she exclaims.

“I came into the car partly because you were in here,” she says to me, “and because the driver looked trustworthy. I feel so ashamed that this happened to me. I have really learnt a very valuable lesson. It just goes to show that we need to be more vigilant and protect ourselves. It could have been a case where we were kidnapped.”

Memories of 23-year-old pharmacist Terry-Ann Thompson swirl in my mind as we make our way along Red Hills Road in the evening drive time traffic.

Thompson, who worked at MegaMart on Waterloo Road, boarded a route taxi in Half-Way-Tree on October 16. Two days later, her badly burnt body was found stuffed in a culvert at Wagner Avenue in Chancery Hall at the foot of Red Hills in St Andrew.

Police say she was raped before being killed.

On the day that Thompson’s body was found, the police appealed to Jamaicans to ensure that they take only registered public transportation.

“People must stay away from robot taxis and take the JUTC (Jamaica Urban Transit Company) buses. Find a reputable taxi company and stay away from illegal transport operators,” head of the St Andrew North Police Division, Superintendent Anthony Morris, was quoted in the Daily Observer.

Since then, however, there have been many stories of people falling victim to criminals operating so-called taxis, even as there is high anxiety in the society about increased numbers of kidnappings.

The women in our car say they were embarrassed because they have heard horror stories of taximen using women to lure female passengers.

They admitted, though, that they were a bit unsure that our car was indeed a taxi because it “looked too clean”.

“I was just about to ask the driver if he just started working on the road because this car seemed very clean, and when I looked around there was hardly anything in the trunk, which is not like a taxi driver,” said the oldest woman, who, while asking not to be named, revealed that she is a teacher.

The other two women, who said they were university students, agreed. They also requested anonymity.

“This car too criss,” one of them said. “The seats are too clean, which is not like the taxis we are used to taking.”

“I didn’t even look at the licence plate number,” the other one confessed.

They, too, said they got into the car because I was in the front seat.

The students were on their way to Pricesmart, while the teacher, who is a mother of three, said she lives close to school but took a detour from work and was heading home.

The teacher also admitted that she is normally cautious, but because it looked like it was going to rain that day she decided to jump into a taxi as soon as possible.

“I don’t normally take robot taxis. I normally take the red plate taxis because I know I have nothing to gain if I meet in an accident in a robot taxi,” she said. “I normally make sure the driver of the taxi is older. I don’t drive with the young drivers.”

She also admitted that she felt very guilty because she did the opposite of what she teaches her students.

“When I am leaving school I normally tell my students to be careful of the taxis they take,” she said. “They are not going to believe that this happened to me when I tell them.”

The women also shared that the men posing as taxi drivers have come up with ingenious ways of luring women into their cars.

“It’s getting really dangerous out there because the predators are using the things that we use to safeguard ourselves to catch us,” one of the students said. “And the minute you let your guard down that is when they get you.”

The practice of many taxi drivers to take short cuts to avoid traffic, they said, is something they fear.

“I start to tremble when the taxi drivers take the short cuts. They are starting to think like us and use the things we normally do to protect ourselves to catch us,” the other student said.

However, the teacher said she has her own contingency plan.

“I always have my hands on the car door just in case. I also look to see if he makes a lot of phone calls,” she said.

But even though she’s fearful, the convenience of taking route taxis is what keeps her using the service.

“It takes you straight to your house, while if I take the bus I have to get off and walk for about 15 minutes before I get home,” she said.

It is now minutes after 6:00 pm and we offer to take the teacher home. After we drop her off, we take the students to Pricesmart, wait while they make their purchase, then take them back to Half-Way-Tree at their request.

They get out and in a heartbeat a man and a woman try to make their way into the car. Of course, we prevent them from doing so.

Next we will look at the problems in the transport sector and suggest ways commuters can protect themselves from unscrupulous persons.