Passangers are more guilty

What I've come to realise as a passenger myself is that passengers are more guilty of drivers' unlawful stoping or parking for boarding and alighting from vehicles than the drivers themselves.

I have noticed with shock the gross disrespect for law on the part of passengers in forcing drivers to stop, for the purposes of boarding and alighting from vehicles at places not designated for those purposes. Some passengers go to the extent of exchanging words or quarrelling with the drivers and their mates when the drivers refuse to stop for fear of getting arrested by the Police. Those passengers who get their requests to alight at a particular place met by drevers' refusal, argue that if it had been people standing there to board the vehicles, the drivers would stop for them to do so. But the question any law abiding person would ask is; if people do not stand at those places not designated for bus-stop purposes, would drivers be tempted to stop there for them to board their vehicles? The problem is that people do not want any form of stress. People want to board and alight from vehicles at the very spots they are coming from or are going. Even when there is a bus-stop a few steps away, people will not go there to board vehicles, no, neither would those already in vehicles wait for drivers to get to the bus-stop to alight.

Three days ago on my way to work in the morning, there was such a traffic jam that it seemed the vehicles were moving at a snail's pace. To make things worse, the red light switched on and the vehicles came to a stand-still. Immediately the vehicle I was travelling on halted, a guy of about seventeen years of age sitting next to the driver's mate asked the mate to open the door for him to alight. The mate said he would not, because they would be arrested and charged ten Ghana cedis if he does. The guy told the mate that that would not happen because there was no Police personnel around. To this the mate answered that we would come across Police personnel a few steps ahead. At this point other passengers added their voices to that of the boy and insisted the mate let the boy alight. Here the driver who had been quiet all this while came in and calmly told the boy to give the mate the ten Ghana cedis to be paid to the Police personnel upon their arrest if he really wanted to alight, and this ended the argument.

As I sat there with all this going on around me, I thought hard and came to the conclusion that for this problem of unlawful stoping or parking to be solved, passengers who board or alight from vehicles at the wrong places must be arrested along with the drivers and their mates. This is because as the issue stands now, passengers are as guilty as the drivers and their mates, if not more guilty. After all it is we the passengers who call for the vehicles to stop at those places to either board or alight.

JUDITH TETTEH OSU-ACCRA