In public service, one person’s misconduct can damage the name of an entire profession. I know that from law enforcement. I know what it means to serve the public and to be judged by how that service is delivered. My profession has its own hard conversations about conduct. We know what it feels like when the unbecoming behaviour of one person in uniform stains the reputation of many. Every profession that faces the public daily carries that same burden. The gap between what you are supposed to represent and what people are actually experiencing can only be ignored for so long.
That is where I am writing from. Not from a place of superiority, but from inside another public-facing profession that knows what genuine service demands and what is lost when that standard slips.
That is also the conversation I want to have with the men and women who drive the minibuses of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. A conversation between people who serve the public and know, or ought to know, exactly what that means.
Because what is happening on our roads has gone beyond a traffic problem. It has become a question of national character. When passengers, including schoolchildren, elderly people, and workers heading home after a long day, describe being deafened, frightened, humiliated, and sometimes put off by the roadside for the offence of speaking up, we are no longer talking about poor road etiquette. We are talking about the kind of country we are becoming.
A minibus is not just a vehicle. It is moving public space. Every day, it carries something irreplaceable: the trust of ordinary Vincentians, many of whom have no other practical way to get where they are going. The mother placing her child in your van. The old man steadying himself as he climbs aboard. The nurse coming off a night shift, too tired to hold on to anything except the hope that she will get home safely. These are not merely passengers. They are people who have placed themselves in your care. They have given you their safety. What you do with that trust is not a private matter. It is a public one.
I know the pressures are real. Fuel is expensive. Parts are expensive. Competition is fierce and unforgiving. Keeping a bus on the road is no easy thing. And still, there are drivers in this country who carry themselves with dignity, who know their regular passengers, who drive with care, and who understand that their vehicle is someone’s lifeline. Those men and women deserve to be recognised, not buried in the same public frustration as those who bring the trade into disrepute. I see them. This piece is not for them.
It is for those who have turned the road into a theatre of intimidation. Those who turn up the music when someone asks for quiet. Those who race other vans for passengers as though human lives are incidental. Those who swear at the people sitting behind them. Those who treat a fare as permission to do as they please. This must be said plainly and respectfully: you are damaging something that does not belong to you alone. You are damaging the reputation of an entire sector. You are teaching children, who are watching more than you think, that power means the freedom to disregard other people. And you are creating the public appetite for the kind of outside control that no one in the transport industry actually wants.
Every profession learns this sooner or later: the reforms you refuse to make for yourselves are often made for you, and they are rarely gentle.
The remedies are not complicated. Keep the bus quieter, especially when children and the elderly are on board. A passenger who raises a concern respectfully deserves a respectful response, not the roadside. Drive with care. Slow down when necessary. Stop where you are supposed to stop. Overtake only when it is safe. Treat the vehicle with the seriousness it demands. These are not petty rules. They are the habits of a professional. And professionalism earns a kind of respect that noise, speed, and bravado never will.
When a child boards a bus, understand that the future of our nation boards with that child.
This road is yours too. Own it with the dignity the work demands and the dignity you yourselves deserve. The country is not expecting perfection from bus drivers. It is expecting the basic standards that should come with carrying the public, especially people who are vulnerable or dependent on public transport.