It's about 6.30 p.m. and a young woman wearing an apprehensive look, is waiting at a Central Trinidad taxi stand.
She is in a quandary. She is desperate to get home but she must ask a taxi driver to take her 'off route' along the Southern Main Road, where the 'round the road' taxis ply Chaguanas, Enterprise and its environs.
She could take a maxi-taxi but then she'd have to walk the extra distance home as some drivers and passengers consider hers to be a 'bad area'.
Some of the settlements off the main road, like the one to which the young woman will be going, are still 'in the bush', where the roads are bad and there are no streetlights.
Dressed in a manner befitting a secretary, the young woman finally stops one of the taxis passing by.
The driver of the car, a registered taxi with an "H" license plate, shakes his head 'no' and drives off. It's getting dark.
About five minutes later, the young lady eyes an oncoming car. The driver is middle-aged and there are two passengers, a man and a woman, in the car. The car is a 'PH', a private car that operates illegally as a taxi.
Nevertheless, the tired young woman, after deciding that the driver and passengers 'look safe', flags it down. The driver agrees to go off-route and the other passengers look slightly annoyed as the relieved young woman boards the taxi.
This young woman is one of hundreds of women who must rely on public transport and who, within the past year, have been placed at an increased risk of losing life and limb while using this service.
In Central in particular, a worrying number of women have disappeared or been found sexually assaulted and murdered with the blame falling largely on illegal PH drivers.
These women are being warned to travel only with registered taxis and even so, only with drivers they are familiar with. They are told to note licence plate numbers and to avoid taxis in which the passengers are only male or 'suspicious looking'.
Chaguanas Mayor, Suruj Rambachan, has repeatedly called for a sweep of the roads to remove 'PH' cars. At last Thursday's post cabinet press conference, Works and Transport Minister Colm Imbert announced his ministry's support of Acting Commissioner James Philbert's planned action against 'PH' drivers.
A significant increase in the 'PH' trade began when the foreign-used car industry made vehicles more affordable and many people who were unemployed, unemployable or who wished to be self-employed, decided to 'pull bull'.
Those who could afford it, would also buy several cars and then hire drivers to work for them.
But are the 'PH' cars really that much less safe than registered 'H"cars ?
Many female commuters feel there is a difference but they also felt that crimes could be committed by anyone.
"If someone has it in their mind to do something, they going do it whether they are 'PH' or taxi," said Sharon D, a 33-year-old commuter from Chaguanas to Freeport.
"So I don't know if you are ever really safe. But still, when you apply for a taxi license, your character becomes known and whether you have a police record, so I suppose that way it will keep out the criminals."
Another commuter told the Sunday Express that there are a lot more robberies and rapes of female passengers than the public was aware of. Many incidents were not reported to the police as the women fear being insensitively treated, their ordeals ignored and their privacy violated by gossiping cops, she said.
"Everybody is coming down on the 'PH' drivers but there have been many crimes involving taxi-drivers too, and nothing comes out of it," said Allison R, of Cunupia.
"If I jump into a registered taxi and there are two others passengers and then the driver goes down into some back road and drops them off, I will find myself alone in the taxi. Who's to say what will happen if the driver is a bad person? These crimes are being committed because everybody know that the police are ineffective and you could get away with anything."
But generally, most of the other people who spoke to the Sunday Express were against the use of 'PH" cars.
"Why are these people pulling bull?," asked Shariza A, also of Cunupia.
"It's because they cannot qualify for a taxi license, or they have some kind of problem with abiding by the law, so they should not be on roads transporting people. People are saying that the 'PH' drivers are filling a gap because there are not enough taxis, well then they should register themselves and join the taxis."
None of this, however, changes the fact that everyday, hundreds of vulnerable young women have to make their way home via public transport. Cellular telephones are kept handy while in the car and parents and husbands are notified upon entering a car, be it 'PH' or 'H'. For those with the means, alternative arrangements are made and families have changed their routines so that they drive their women around themselves.
On the Todd's Road taxi stand-where passengers are going as far as Caparo and Flanagin Town-the commuters are almost all women.
"We have to be real, real careful," said Giselle C, to nods from her fellow travellers.
"Plenty of us living in areas where there is plenty bush. But taxis for these areas real hard to get and we glad when we get even a 'PH' car. Sometimes the driver will go off route and your heart beating fast and you holding your cell phone in your hand in case of anything.
"I know one family where the girl's father made her leave her job in a store in Chaguanas, just because he didn't want her travelling. All of us can't do that. The women now try to stick together and if we see any small children on the stand, we try to keep an eye on them. It is easy for people with their cars to say that we shouldn't travel with the 'PH' drivers but we don't have a choice."
