Accessibility and affordability of basic services like transportation is a key indicator in determining the living standard of a people.

In fact, transportation, as a mode of communication, is crucial to the development of a nation. It is indeed also true that a certain development in a particular sector of the economy will always have rippling effects on some other sectors. So it couldn’t have been a coincidence that the erratic nature of the price of fuel at the international level was going to have an impact at home.

The recently announced increase in transport fares is, as you would expect, the talk of the town these days. Already, sporadic reports of isolated cases of tussles between drivers and passengers are rife. It is either some passengers feel pissed off about what they perceive, as in the words of one man, as greed on the part of vehicle owners, or the increase came as a shock, having been effected without warning.

Well, in situations like this, it is difficult to apportion blame. We must however brace ourselves for the apparent discomfort for both drivers and passengers, in terms of giving back change in the case of odd number figures. Some drivers have always held on to the crude belief that it is the duty of the passenger to ensure that they do not board their vehicles with big change and, to the contrary, the  passengers feel that it is the drivers’ obligation to ensure the availability of change. These are pertinent issues that are fitting for discussion in a transport related forum.

Furthermore, as it is now, we will have no choice but to go by the dictates of the oil price increase. The only advice left is to quickly get ourselves reconciled to our fate and start making out ways and means of limiting the pinching effect that this might cause. Limiting the usage of vehicles might do better, especially if commuters are not going to distant destinations. This obviously has the added advantage of maintaining physical wellbeing.

But there is also the issue of drivers’ attitude towards passengers, in terms of their license for the number of passengers they should carry as well as the destination they cover.

When, for instance, a drivers say they are going to Tabokoto, they mostly mean Brikama. But one wouldn’t know this until they got as far as Latrikunda. And in such cases these drivers would be bold enough to coerce their passengers into paying double fares.

The same thing is also true for Tabokoto – Banjul/Westfield, and other destinations. The question is; who checks them for such dastardly acts? The help of the police is being sought in this regard. Let’s discuss some of our acts in a view to making life comfortable for all.