On the morning of 25 July the Record team dragged themselves out of bed at an ungodly hour in order to meet up at the Metrobus stop on Wilde Amandel Avenue, Roodekrans.
Journalist Clinton Botha went through the Joe Soap channels and established that in order to travel to Roodepoort CBD from this point he had to be there before 6.45am since this was the time of departure. The team made sure they were at the rendezvous at 6.15am.
The plan of action was to have journalists Mathilde Myburgh and Riaan van Zyl follow Botha and Editor Tihan van der Walt who were going to board the bus. Armed with multiple cameras both on and off the bus, the morning … well … sort of got going.
By 7.40am the other commuters, pupils, decided to walk to Ouklip Road to catch another bus and avoid being late. Again. This is apparently a common occurrence for them, which incurs their teachers’ wrath.
Almost an hour late, the bus arrived and the tailing team started following.
The first observation was thick black smoke billowing from the bus – so much for eco-friendliness.
The driver made various unofficial stops to pick up passengers randomly. Travelling down Mimosa Street, which has a 40km/h speed limit, the team would have had to drive up to 90km/h in order to keep up with the speeding bus.
Turning into Ruhamah Drive from Mimosa Street the bus skipped a red traffic light. At the next turn towards the Westgate bus depot a taxi (surprisingly) cut the team off but they managed to keep up.
The Metrobus driver was not big on using indicators throughout the journey.
Now Botha and Van der Walt had to board a second bus, which they narrowly missed due to the first bus being late. The next bus would only come in 20 minutes.
“We were treated as if we were not welcome on the bus,” Botha remarked while waiting.
The second dirty bus had one brake light missing and again indicating was not of high priority.
Turning into Albertina Sisulu Road another red traffic light was skipped and a taxi followed it (surprisingly).
Turning from Albertina Sisulu Road the bus again turned without indicating even though JMPD officers were looking on. No action was taken.
A third red traffic light was skipped on Station Street.
Botha and Van der Walt finally got off again in Roodepoort Central after being overcharged twice.
The busses involved were R6030, registration NKN 481 GP and bus 320 registration FVF 219 GP. The four taxis infringing traffic rules were reported at the JMPD.
