Don’t Blame Me If You Can’t Jump Faster...

Recently I wrote about public transport – or the lack of it – in South Africa. Without buses or trains, many people are forced to use minibus taxis, which are badly maintained (i.e. close to falling apart), not insured and have a significantly higher risk of being involved in an accident than any other motor vehicles. In short, they are rolling death traps!

In a desperate attempt to make roads safer, Government recently introduced a system, which penalises drivers with demerit points for traffic offences. Once drivers exceed a threshold of points, their license will be suspended for three months. On the third suspension, the license gets cancelled. However, for every three months that no offence is committed, one point gets deducted.

Quite a nice system if you ask me… South African taxi drivers respectfully disagree and protested against its implementation.

A local newspaper reports:

“About 400 taxi drivers marched to the Union Buildings to protest against the implementation of the traffic demerit system yesterday. The South African Transport Union is demanding that the Government withdraw the new licensing system, saying it would cause its members hardship and result in job losses.

Government said it was its duty to reduce carnage on the roads and that at least 14 000 people had lost their lives due to accidents on the country's roads every year. The Union responded that it was unfair to blame taxi drivers for the road carnage because 34% of those who died on South Africa’s roads were pedestrians.”

I believe no further comment is needed…