Dear Editor, Is it true that Transport Minister Mike Henry is seriously contemplating ticketing passengers of robot taxis?

I won’t even go into the issue of there not being enough legal taxis and buses to service many routes islandwide.Let’s look at a scenario. A female who lives twenty miles away in “Woie Woie” leaves her place of employ at the Chinese wholesale at 7:00 pm.The legal taxis that service the route to her district have ceased operating from 6:00 pm, as the volume of passengers has now become too small to make the trip economically viable. Coupled with that, the legal taxi operators have to catch the carwash before they close for the day; and they themselves, having been up from 5:30 am, need to get some well-needed rest.Now what would the goodly Minister Henry have that woman do? Walk the twenty miles home, or wrestle with the other 10 waiting people willing to take the attendant risks for a place in the robot taxi?I have personally witnessed a “flatty” [old model Toyota Corolla] transport 10 adults, driver excluded; three of them travelled in the trunk and no one complained.This is the reality of many Jamaicans, one that people like the goodly minister in his SUV driven by his chauffeur will, in all likelihood, never experience.Then picture the security guard dad, and his partner who makes a living selling sweets and snacks by the roadside, that have a three-year old daughter.Five such families come together and beg ‘John Brown’ down the road, who has a car, to assist them by dropping the toddlers off and picking them up daily at the day care three miles away, for a small fee.A regular taxi won’t take them because that space is reserved for an adult who is paying the full fare. Again, what would Mr Minister have those parents do, have the kids stay home by themselves, have the parents stay home and everyone starve to death, or work with what is essentially a robot taxi?What if I, for example, live in an area, where at peak hour when I need to get to work everything passes full? I am late and to avoid losing the “likkle wuk” by being late for the fifth time that week I offer to pay a fellow from down the road who is passing a “smalls” to leave me at my workplace.Mr Minister would wish to effect legislation to penalise me for that?What is unfortunate about all of this is that, unlike places like the United States of America, the primary concern of Jamaican governments is not the welfare of its citizens.Their priority is revenue generation, even at the expense of needlessly making criminals of more Jamaicans.Mr Minister why not spend your time doing something useful, like getting the bauxite companies to fill the gaping craters they leave in the Jamaican countryside? Maybe if someone could organise for us to have some “robot Ministers” the current legal ones might do a better job.Robert Mitchell