Kevin Dale has seen many puzzling things in the two decades he has been driving his taxi. But the strangest of the lot, he said, was the day a man he believed to be a ghost entered his vehicle.

The 47-year-old cabbie says he can’t quite remember the year it happened; however, he recalls that he was parked at the taxi stand in Spalding, Clarendon, loading his cab for a normal service to Mandeville.

The day had not yet entered the peak travel hours, so only one passenger was in the cab, occupying the front passenger seat, before the man climbed into the back seat.

“The man look ordinary. Him come in the car like a normal Jamaican,” Dale told the Jamaica Observer on Thursday.

It wasn’t an easy decision to leave the taxi stand with a mere two passengers for the approximately 13-mile drive, but not seeing any other customers, Dale set off on the journey.

All seemed well until he heard the man in the back seat call out “One stop, driver.” Dale stopped the car on the side of the road and waited for the man to exit the vehicle, but the man, he said, never even opened the door.

“When I stop nobody nuh come out and when mi look behind mi the man nuh inna di car. The other passenger say him hear one stop too and him don’t see anybody come out. So mi a seh is a duppy mi pick up, because weh di man gone? And who call out one stop?” Dale said, adding that the passenger in the front seat was just as confused.

“A we one inna the car and wi nuh know weh the man turn, because him in the back of the car and wi nuh see or hear when when him come out the car. Mi just smile and drive,” the taxi driver said.

The experience, he said, did not shake him.

“I didn’t feel afraid, because wi expect anything to happen on the route. Each day we get up we are at war, you know. I don’t feel anyway different. Wi in the car just laughing,” he said.

“Mi know seh God a protect mi, so mi nah fret over them things deh. The spirit want a drive and him get it; mi nah fret over them things deh,” Dale emphasised.

At the same time, he cautioned his fellow taxi drivers to be vigilant on the road because of the many dangers they face.

“I just want people to know still to be safe out there because you encounter a lot of different things and you have to have your guard up. If people nah try rob and kill yuh, yuh meet rude passengers who waan disrespect yuh, or even spirits that might want to do you harm. So everybody just have to be careful and trust in God,” Dale said.

Name: Kevin Dale

Age: 47 years old

Length of career: 20 years

Route: Spalding to Mandeville