RA Hayward writes:
On Saturday morning I was driving north on Pretoria Road, between Miles Sharp and the roadworks still underway at and just before the fire station.
An old Nissan 16-seater taxi overtook us and eight more cars on the other side of the solid barrier line, on the southward side of the road, in the face of oncoming traffic, cutting in again just before the shopping centre on the right.
While I was still trying to imagine what kind of brainless idiot would even attempt a manoeuvre like this, with innocent passengers on board, he then had to stop behind a car at a red light, just ahead of us.
No problem to him, he just pulled out, drove around the car in front of him, ignoring the red light, ignoring the additional barrier line he’d just crossed and went on his merry way.
We all know about taxis and we’ve heard, ad nauseum, about the so-called zero tolerance policies that get trotted out every Christmas period, and every Easter weekend.
We get some videos and news articles showing traffic authorities supposedly doing their jobs, mostly on the toll roads down to the coast.
That’s it, then the rest of the time it’s everyone for himself out there.
Speed restrictions are a joke, because they are ignored. Red robots are there to be beaten and stop streets are “if you’ve seen one before you don’t have to stop every time, doll”.
And drunken drivers are everywhere.
If they get caught, their blood tests will take up to a few years to process.
But, in the face of all this anarchy on our roads, there are actually significant numbers of responsible drivers, who adhere to speed limits, stop when required, have number plates at the front as well as the back of their cars and who undoubtedly share my anger and frustration at the daily goings-on.
I don’t think, for one moment, that my letter will change anything or that someone in a position of authority will read it and take action.
We’re way beyond that, with little likelihood of any road authority taking the taxi industry on.
They seem to have protection on a massive scale.
Finally, when they publish the festive season road death statistics maybe they should separate the taxi deaths from the cars, buses and pedestrians, then we could perhaps decide for ourselves whether we are actually one of the worst countries in the world for road deaths.
In closing, I’ve just read a news item about a taxi accident in Touws River(Western Cape) in which 12 passengers were killed, when the taxi overturned.
Tragic.
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