/ 6 March 2010

Taxi owners given six months to comply with safety standards

The government has given taxi owners and financial institutions six months to fix the illegally converted minibus taxis currently on the roads, Deputy Transport Minister Jeremy Cronin said on
Friday.

“We have given them a grace period of six months which begins on April 1 to September 30.

“We believe this period is more than reasonable to complete the process of converting these vehicles legally,” Cronin said.

He said it cost about R18 000 to convert a panel van into a minibus taxi compliant with the safety specifications. For privately owned taxis, owners would have to fork out the R18 000. For those financed by financial institutions, these would carry the costs, Cronin said.

There are currently about 2 353 panel vans in South Africa that have been illegally converted into passenger-carrying minibuses which do not comply with new safety standards.

These vehicles are among the 32 000 taxis scrapped and replaced with new ones under the government’s taxi recapitalisation programme (TRP).

Initially there were 136 000 minibus taxis that qualified for the programme but only 32 000 had been scrapped and replaced.

Cronin said the conversion of commercial vehicles to passenger vehicles was permissible but there was a “homologation process” to be followed in order to render such conversions legal.

“In the case of the 2 353 converted panel vans in question, these processes were by-passed. There are investigations going on because we have good reason to believe that some dealerships, manufacturer-importer builders —
those doing conversions — and some traffic licensing departments officials, knowingly by-passed legal requirements and also fraudulently changed documentation.”

Cronin said when tests were carried out on the illegal taxis, they passed the brake testing, tilt testing and the roll over-protection tests.

He said the tests established that the seat and seatbelt anchorages failed to meet the strength set down in the TRP.

“From the result’s of the tests, it is permissible to upgrade the existing panel van conversions by strengthening the seat and seatbelt anchorage, in order to ensure compliance with the safety requirements of the TRP.”

The president of SA National Taxi Council, Jabulani Mthembu, said the council had agreed on the upgrading of the existing vehicles because its aim was to see people back in business. – Sapa