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Concerning the taxi-recapit- alisation programme, Trans-port Minister Jeff Radebe said that the government is going to try to turn the taxi industry into a formal part of the public-transport system. He said: “The days of the taxi industry regulating itself will soon become a thing of the past.” Great. I wish the minister all the luck in the world.
Just a few days ago, at about 17:00, I was driving by Monte Casino, in Johannesburg, and the behaviour of the minibus taxis was totally disgraceful. Needless to say, there was not a traffic cop in sight and, to me, the chaos there appeared to be standard daily routine.
There was traffic – it was 17:00 – but the taxis were overtaking on the left, on the grass, with total disregard for other motorists. At a robot there were two lanes each way and then a third partial lane for turning right. A taxi whished past me from the left lane, over the right lane and into the ‘turning right’ piece of lane, and then, as the robot turned red against him, he drove through the red robot and turned left across the two lanes that he had just pushed through. So he had manoeuvred into the ‘right only’ lane to turn left.
Another taxi just did a U-turn from the northbound direction to go south. He just crossed four lanes of traffic and hooted his way through. It just went on and on. I saw at least six taxis go through red traffic lights. I was thinking that, if one of them had an accident and killed someone, then the driver should be prosecuted for culpable homicide. Well, as I always say, the cops were all back at HQ eating doughnuts or fine-tuning their speed cameras on the freeway. Traffic cops are certainly not the motorist’s friend; they are just a self-perpetuating money-generating machine. But back to the taxis. This sheer disregard for the law is a disgrace, and the minister figures that as soon as the new taxis arrive then, suddenly, all drivers will become well-behaved caring citizens. He even says all passengers will be wearing seat belts.
Gee whiz, I must be on another planet. This driver attitude will not change. As I was watching all the taxi-driver bad manners, one swung onto the other side of the road and cut in front of a bus, right in front of me. The bus hit him. Luckily for the passengers, it did not seem to be a serious hit, so I don’t think anyone was badly hurt. The two drivers got out and started shouting at each other. I watched all this as we crawled along at about 1 km/h. The taxi state of affairs is serious. I have watched taxis in Grayston Drive, in Sandton, jump robots and ride on the concrete pavements. The cops ate another doughnut. The taxi guys seem to think that rules of common decency do not apply to them. If the minister really wants to clean up the taxi scene, which he really has to do, then he has to start with driver attitude.
I don’t know how the licensing system works here, but I know that, in other countries, a driver’s licence to transport passengers is a really valuable document, something like an explosive expert’s ticket in the mines. It guarantees a person a career and the documents are highly sought-after and protected. If a London taxi driver is convicted of dangerous driving, the loss of the driver’s licence is a very serious reality and it also means that the driver could go to jail if he dares to carry paying passengers without the licence.
My feeling is that the taxi in- dustry, at the least, needs large identity numbers visible on each vehicle and a national free-call phone line that any motorist can phone to report a taxi driving dangerously. If more than, say, three calls from three different people on three different days come in for one driver then that driver should be hauled up for investigation.
I have had regular taxi pas- sengers tell me that they are often petrified as they travel, but that they are too scared to reprimand the driver. The drivers really do act as if they are the mafia. This ‘mafia rules’ attitude should be tackled now – not only when the new taxis arrive, as if, somehow, a new, more-powerful and larger vehicle is going to make a driver suddenly become polite. All he will do is carry out more powerful U-turns in traffic and jam an even larger vehicle into a small gap.
The minister said there has been a lack of effective regula- tion by government. Quite right, but the doughnut crew should start doing their job now
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