Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore I am. (René Descartes, mathematician and philosopher,1599-1650)

Saturday 17 April 2010

Lockington's Everyday Fiji ... Life Goes On


Allen Lockington is a self-employed customs agent and business consultant who has regular articles published in www.connectme.com.fj/news/opinion. I thank Allen and Connect for permission to reprint some of them in this political blog. They remind us that life goes on, whatever the political situation. And it's good to know that.



Minibus Service Needed

Taxi owners and the bus industry will be thankful that illegal vehicles have been taken of the road. 3,000 vehicles were booked. Of that 300 were deregistered. Many people will be without an income, but who cares eh, what they were doing was illegal. About 39 drivers got their licence suspended and four drivers had their driver's licence cancelled. Wow!

That was some operation that the LTA and Police did. Soon there will not be any illegal vehicles on the road. But like I said before, these activities have been in operation for many years and may have filled in gaps and times where legitimate vehicles dared not go.  Let’s hope we are patching up the hole with backup plans to keep us the travelling public moving. Transport is an essential part of our lives.

And while I’m on transport, I went down with two ladies to the minibus stand in Lautoka. They are doing a fantastic job. Oh, these guys have LM number plates. But there is a slight problem. A bank manager sometimes has to catch a minibus to get to work early. She works in Nadi. She gets up very early and catches a taxi down to the Namoli Car Park. The few mornings she been down there she has had bad experiences. 

Twice she was at the stand with only two other people. When the first minibus arrived it stopped right in front of her so she gently moved towards the door. But she got the shock of her live when she was rudely shoved aside by a man. She almost fell on the footpath and cried out, “Hey watch it, man.” The man just hopped right in and sat down without a word. He didn’t even flinch. The next day it was a big lady. She was standing alone when the same van arrived. Once again she was shoved aside but this time it was by a woman, who was much bigger than her.

Such experiences can put a person off travelling. But she said the minibus association can arrange it so that people buy tickets and you enter the van in numerical order or in a sensible way.   People make an effort to go down early and to be treated like that is terrible.

I bet the minibus company can consider genteel people who also use the service.

2 comments:

Coup coup land said...

With intellectual geniuses like you and walsh supporting them how could the regime not succeed?

Invictus said...

One need not concern ones self with anothers intellectual capabilities but be very concerned of their own.