Bus drivers of Southern Transport in Dangriga, which is a part of the Novelo's receivership company, put a quiet halt to operations out of that terminal at 9 this morning. We were alerted to it this afternoon and when we arrived we found the terminal filled with buses that were going nowhere. The drivers told Alfonso Noble that they will not be driving the buses on any further runs because simply put they are not road worthy.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
According to the drivers of all these buses parked in the Southern Transport Terminal in Dangriga, every single one of them is not worthy to be on the roads.
Driver #1,
"When I came to work this morning, we understand that most of the buses have problems with brakes and some of them have windshield problems as you could see over there. Some of them have other problems like...basically most of the problems are with the brakes and that is our concern as drivers. We are not really on a strike, we just not driving the buses because they are not road worthy. We have innocent people's lives in our hands and they don't know but we know and it burdens us to know that we are carrying these poor people and they don't know better. If we want to kill ourselves, if we are foolish enough to drive the buses without brakes and want to kill ourselves, that's okay but it's the innocent people who don't know, who are paying their hard earned cash to ride a bus and don't know that we are traveling most of the time without brakes, without proper tires, without windshield. Its not fair on them."
Driver #2,
"My bus is parked over there because it needs brake parts and they say they won't send any for us and so we are waiting for the parts and they say they won't buy any parts for us."
Driver #3,
"My bus doesn't have any brakes. I need the brake liners for a long time now and I had to put the front wheel brakes to the back and the machine smokes a lot when you take off. You see a lot of smoke to the back and then in the flooring the seats are like falling out and when you are running on the Placencia road the dust is coming into the bus and when you reach up the passengers are dusty up. It's not safe because I have no brakes and the machine is burning three gallons of oil and plus the license is up also.
Driver #4,
"We need tires for the bus. The tires are showing wire and we have a
wheel seal that's throwing a lot of oil and we have to take a seat out of the bus because there is a big hole and one of the seats dropped the flooring."
Driver #5,
"I have to take the front-liner and put it to the back."
Alfonso Noble,
What is that?
Driver #5,
"It is something like this. The back is a bit wider so I have to use the one from the front at the back."
Alfonso Noble,
What problem does that cause out on the road?
Driver #5,
"You don't have any brakes. You don't have any brakes."
Alfonso Noble,
What will happen when this thing completely fails?
Driver #5,
"Probably get in an accident or something."
And because of that laundry list of problems that the buses have, ranging from these thread bare tires to failing and falling brake mechanisms, as of 9 this morning every one of the buses that pulled into the station was parked, and the drivers say they will stay there until they are repaired.
Driver #1,
"At this point the drivers decided that since the boss doesn't want to buy anymore parts then we can't do anything until they begin to buy some parts for us. This is something that should've happened a long long time but because we are concerned about our jobs, we realize that if we kickback, we will all go home but a this point we will all go home anyway. If you are the owner of a bus and you don't want to buy a part for it, one day, the time will come when the bus driver will say I need this part."
Driver #2,
"I am not going to risk my life and people's life with three wheel brakes through the Hummingbird because it is hills we are dealing with and curves. So I am not risking my life and nobody's life to please anyone."
Alfonso Noble,
When will your bus go back on the road?
Driver #2,
"As soon as I get my parts."
Driver #3,
"Only the driver and the conductor knows what is on the best and we take our time to go because they need to get home and we need to make money for our children but they have no idea that the bus has no brakes or that the bus is not in good shape or nothing."
Alfonso Noble,
When will your bus go back on the road?
Driver #3,
"When they fix the...right now we need the license, the brakes, the flooring inside needs to fix, and so when all those things get fixed. When they get fixed."
Driver #4,
"Its not safe to run on the road because if I get a blowout it causes
a lot of problems to the people that are riding on the bus and I know its not safe for myself. I have a family and I have to think about them also so that's why I come and park the bus because I don't think its safe for the passengers and also myself."
But that may be too much to ask of those running the company as the drivers say that directives have been put out for the buses to be run until they can run no more.
Driver #1,
"This same managers tells us that when he speaks to Belize City about parts, they say to run the buses until they park and as soon as they are parked, he will call in James (Bus) to do the runs for us. That's all but he will not buy any parts."
Driver #3,
"For months now we've been waiting for parts and the workshop managers said we ere going to get parts in one month and so we used the front wheel brake liners to go to the back so we can just run to Placencia because we need to run and we need to work but see where we reach, we buck."
This afternoon after giving us time to do our work the station manager, Marvin Rivas unceremoniously kicked us out of the terminal.
Marvin Rivas,
[To Alfonso] "You need to get off this premises right now."
Alfonso Noble,
So you won't give us an interview?
Marvin Rivas,
"No I will not give an interview. If you want to know anything, call Belize and you need to get off the premises now, okay."
This attitude surprised the drivers who say that he was the one instigating them to park the buses in the first place.
Driver #1,
"I was supposed to go to Belmopan to pick a pan of tools to work on the parts for my bus and when I came in along with Mr. Castillo and his bus, Mr. Castillo asked me to relieve him because he is tired and only his bus was running and I told him I would relieve him at 1 o'clock. But when we came off the bus, me and Mr. Castillo, the manager approached us and told us that everyone is on stand still right now because they don't want to send any parts so I don't understand what this man is trying and he is the one who started this whole thing here. He started the whole thing."
So while this one day stand may begin to fragment with the Manager disassociating himself from the drivers, they say they will stand firm even if it means that tomorrow they don't have a job.
Driver #1,
"If we stick together, when they fire one they will have to fire all. They will have to fire everybody and as for the fear of jobs, we think that two weeks down the road, from this point, we would have never had a job anyway."
