Top Star calls on harassed motorists to come forward

MBOMBELA – The management of Top Stars Taxi Association urges motorists who have been harassed and made to pay for giving lifts to passengers to report that with their officers in the CBD.

Mr Muntu Gama, the general secretary of the South African National Taxi Association SANTAC Ehlanzeni region said,

“Our cars are clearly branded and have our contact numbers on them.

It is easy for motorists to locate us or even call us to lay their complaints against any of our patrollers who had requested or taken money from them.

“It is against the association’s policy for any taxi drivers or patrollers to take money from motorists who give people lifts.

If it did happened to anyone, we are calling on them to report those people to us,” he stressed.

Gama’s call comes after a number of motorists who offered lifts to hitch-hiking passengers claimed to have been threatened and requested to pay fines ranging between R200-R800 at different hiking spots around town as reported by Mpumalanga News on May 12.

Gama maintains that they are not fighting with private vehicles, but are calling them to respect the rules of their operating licences and call on passengers to make use of the existing taxi ranks in town.

“We have noted that most people no longer use the taxi rank because there are so many cars pirating around town.

This includes company registered vehicles, truck drivers and police vans.

“All these have a negative impact on taxi operators as it becomes difficult for them to reach their monthly targets, hence it becomes difficult to pay our monthly instalments,” he explained.

Gama says offices of the association are open at the taxi rank and customers can visit them if they need any assistance, be if they lost their goods in a taxi or to complain about drivers’ attitudes.

“Where will one complain if he lost his items in a lift? We have heard of serious incidents before where hitch-hickers were hijacked, drugged or even raped.

To avoid such cases, let us use the proper modes of transport from either the taxi rank or the bus rank,” he says.

A 34-year old man from Msholozi says his friend from Nkomazi was glad to be alive today after being offered juice in a lift he hiked from the N4 towards Malalane over the past months.

“We hiked from Middelburg to Nelspruit and that’s where we separated ways as my friend had to continue hiking on the N4 towards Malelane and I took a taxi home.

He got a lift with two guys inside and when they reached the nearby garage, two of them went out to buy juice from the garage and he was offered a sealed one.

“We don’t know what happened there because he was found near the road at Luphisi the following day.

He had nothing, his wallet, cellphones, money and his belongings were all gone,” explained the source.

“He recalled my number, hence I was called by people who found him there to come and fetch him from Luphisi, he seems to have lost his conscience a bit.

From there I vowed not to take the risk of hiking again,” he adds.

Below are two examples of the risks of hitch-hiking and offering a lift to hitchhikers:

On October 22, 2015, News 24 reported that a 31-year-old male hitchhiker was allegedly raped by the three women who gave him a lift in their BMW making it the the fifth incident to be reported on in the past few years.

This happened between Phalaborwa and Hoedspruit.

In September 2013 the Pretoria Circuit of the High Court seated in Nelspuit heard how a man was shot in the neck, dragged out of his vehicle and left for dead in the middle of the road in Lydenburg, after he had offered a lift to three men.