“Claremont! Mowbray! Kaap!(Cape Town), these are the shouts
you will often hear if you are one of the thousands of Cape Townians who travel
by taxi on these routes or any other taxi route in South Africa. The
gaartjie (conductor) belts out the destination of the taxi, and if they can squeeze in 1 more they will. Taxis
in South Africa are 15 seater minibus vans or Toyota Quantum’s, most taxi
drivers however overload their taxis by loading up to 18-20 people. Most taxis
are privately owned and the owners employ drivers with strict instruction of
how much they expect to collect for the day. Their expectation ranges between
R1000 and R1500 per day – any amount above this, goes into the driver’s pocket.
Taxis are also hired for private functions for which taxi drivers receive
additional revenue. Drivers are responsible for petrol and are liable for any
traffic fines which they may incur.
You can have as many as 30 taxis operating on 1 route which
is controlled by an area association each with its own rules and regulations.
Because of the volume of taxis on our roads there is fierce competition for
routes and passengers. In Cape Town you have Codetta (Congress for Democratic
Taxi Associations) and Cata (Cape Amalgamated Taxi Association) to whom an area
taxi associations affiliate to. Area
associations that operate under the banner of 1 of these associations are not
allowed to operate on routes controlled by the other. With new developments
lots of new routes are opening up and sometimes these 2 associations then
become involved in a violent battle for these new routes. Some drivers will
sleep or arrive in the middle of the night at their designated taxi rank so
that they can be first in line when passengers start arriving at the rank in
the morning. Each rank has a line controller which controls which taxi can load
passengers first.
Taxi drivers have a set fare they charge passengers and it
is an amount they don’t deviate from. If you board without enough cash and did
not negotiate for a “discount” upfront, the driver will insist on his money or
let rip with a few choice words before allowing the passenger to continue with
the journey. Some hardnosed drivers have been known to stop their taxi on the
side of the road if their fare is short and would wait until their outstanding
money is paid; this generally leads to arguments between the passengers as to
who did not pay their fare. Most drivers have little or no respect for their
passengers or the rules of the road and while drivers can receive fines and be
suspended when a complaint is laid, this is not an industry norm as drivers
form a tight unit. Taxi fares are normally only increased when there is an
increase in the petrol price.
The modus operandi of the drivers seem to be to get to
their destination as quickly as possible - this means that they usually exceed
the speed limit, stop where they want to (this can be blamed on the passengers
themselves who dictate to the driver where they want to get on or off as taxis
in South Africa don’t have designated stop areas whiles in transit), cut across
traffic, weaving in and out of lanes, jump a red robot (traffic light) and play
booming music. When drivers reach their
end destination and queue for their next load of passengers, they can queue for
up to 2 hours and because of this they tend to go and “skarrel”(trawl) for
passengers on the side of the road, because passengers are few and far between
in “Off peak” (normally between 10h00-15h00). While trawling, drivers tend to
drive very slowly and will play deaf to the request of passengers to speed up
or to leave the rank with 1 or 2 passengers short. Taxi drivers are also
politically aware and it is not uncommon for taxi associations to call for a
boycott if they agree with the view of a particular course or political party,
trade union or if they have a grievance against police or traffic police. The public is generally warned when they go
on strike but in most cases when a Go-slow (no warning) is called thousands of
pedestrians are left stranded with no means of getting to work unless there are
busses operating in the area or they can afford private transport.
Because of their habits to flaunt the rules of the road
drivers have become the target of the traffic police who actively patrol the
streets on the lookout for taxis who violate traffic rules. Fines are issued
out and promptly ignored, resulting in warrants of arrest –neither are deterrents
or incentives to abide to the rules of the road. Often if the traffic police put up a road
block, taxi drivers with a clear record and roadworthy taxis would warn their
fellow taxi drivers about the location of the roadblock via a phone call or by
flashing their lights. Those drivers with outstanding warrants normally drop
their passengers off on the side of the road to wait for another taxi and then
duck and dive their way back to the taxi rank to wait out the roadblock.
In general the public would
love to stop the taxi operators from abusing the system but because of a lack
of a decent and reliable public transport system, the public are caught in a
situation whereby they rely on the taxi operators to get them to and from their
destination.
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