by Jaye Green

Created on: April 14, 2009

In Jamaica we have a particular nature of vehicle. This is not a brand name or a CC rating; this is a motor vehicle generically called a Phucfa, which is received as a token for services rendered.

The recipient of said vehicle, in the vastly over estimated belief of her own significance to the continued rotation of the Earth, operates the Phucfa with scant attention to any other user of the road.

This is because she has not paid for the vehicle, nor it's registration or insurance. In short, she has absolute control over a vehicle for which she might not even pay gas.

Her licence to operate said vehicle may have been the result of monetary transaction between the purchaser of said Phucfa and a civil servant.

Hence, unleashed on the public, she proceeds to, (for want of a better term) drive on the public roads with all care and attention reserved for oblivion.

She will stop where and when she pleases, turn when the thought occurs, and park somewhere in the vicinity of the curb. That other drivers of vehicles they pay for an insure evidence some form of care, the drivers of Phucfas are not so constrained.

Often, to avoid colliding with said vehicle other drivers are forced off the road or into collission. Often, silly pedestrians learn how high and fast they can jump, when she continues through those silly stripes on the asphalt.

If for any reason an unemployed police officer should take it upon himself to stop the driver of a Phucfa he will often get to speak to the purchaser, who may be an Inspector of the same force, a Minister of government, or someone who offers to help him in life, and the driver does not deem a simple police officer worthy of her speech.

If involved in an accident, her first call is to the Phucfa provider and usually consists of the location of said Phucfa along with the admonishion; "I have nothing to drive," as she slips on her heels and stalks away from the useless vehicle.

Those who quickly replace one Phucfa with another maintain the services of the aforesaid driver. Those who are lax in their resupply of said vehicle will find that they have been dismissed from contemplation.

As other users of the road have come to identify Phucfa drivers, they make every effort to avoid them, going so far as to park and wait until said vehicle fades in the distance.

Because of the dangers of Phucfas, Jamaican roads are not for the faint hearted.

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