Blake,Originally Posted by Blake
As I have stated, here is my quote from that exact same question already asked:
"...Believe what you want and travel how you want. But to answer your question, I have heard of too many incidents around the island involving tourists, even though one is still too many.
Negril is a rather small town with a population hovering around 5000 and receives lesser numbers of visitors to the island than MoBay or Ocho Rios, so the number of incidents here are relatively small. But there have been incidents reported all around the island, in Hanover (not Negril), several in St James, a few more in the north coast areas and of course Kingston. "
There have been incidents happening to Jamaicans using unfamiliar route taxis. Some have ended up much worse than a robbery.
The point of Negril.com, the reason I created it back in 1995, was to promote Negril in such a way that visitors to the island would be given the best information available to make their vacation the best possible.
Being in the position of knowing that incidents have increased around the island last year and also owning and operating Negril.com does put me in a difficult position. There is no doubt about that. But I do feel that it is time to take the stance that there are inexpensive and easy options to using the route taxi system. Just as when I started Negril.com, we didnt warn about walking the beach at night because there were very few if any problems. But in the last 20 years, that has changed and we now recommend not to walk in the unlit areas of the beach at night. It is simply not a smart thing to do. Of course you can do it and people still do, but you are increasing your risk factor.
I now feel the same about the visitors using unfamiliar route taxis as more incidents occurred last year and one exact example from Negril veterans has been relayed here for all to learn from. It is not fear mongering, it is more of a case of a common sense safety issue. For visitors, I no longer can feel comfortable advising them to use a system that they are not familiar with and that was not designed to transport them in the first place.
You can think I am biased all you want. And if you define being biased as providing the best safety information possible to make all of our visitors have the best vacation possible, then I will wear that biased badge proudly. But the fact of the matter is that we have route taxi drivers advertising with us to provide charter taxi services for our visitors.
Can the system be improved? Of course it can. Can standard rates be set and enforced for charter drivers? Possibly but very unlikely since Jamaica is one of the most capitalistic societies on the planet. Will there be a true mass transit system set up for Negril in the future? Of course there will be. But until that happens, just as until the unlit areas of the beach are lit up at night, I cannot responsibly recommend that visitors to our island use a route taxi system of which they have little or no knowledge.
Blake - now a question for you - how many, what percentage of visitors to Negril would read and know what the "Lilliput" marking on the route taxi meant and would know not to use that route taxi? The percentage of Jamaicans in Negril who would know not to get into that route taxi would be very close to 100%. If you feel the percentage of visitors would be rather small, then you know the reason why I do not feel comfortable recommending visitors using the route taxi system.
