Unruly taxi drivers who think they are immune to road rules and terrorise passengers by forcing them to commute in their vehicles should be dealt with, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Tuesday.
Ann Barnes, the party’s spokesperson for traffic in Johannesburg, said authorities had to start ”confiscating taxis and charging drivers who endanger everyone who uses the road”.
”The news that some taxi drivers are stopping buses and pulling passengers off to force them to use taxis is the worst kind of tyrannical apartheid behaviour.
”People should choose where they spend their money and if they don’t want to spend it on unsafe taxis with unsafe drivers then they shouldn’t have to,” she said.
Barnes was referring to an article in the Sowetan newspaper on Tuesday, stating that taxi drivers were stoning Putco buses on Louis Botha Avenue, demanding that passengers use their taxis instead.
The Alexandra-Randburg-Midrand-Sandton Taxi Association (Armsta) and the Alexandra Taxi Association (ATA) were allegedly forcing the Putco buses off the road because commuters preferred them due to their cheaper fares, the paper reported.
A commuter quoted in the paper, Thami Ngida, said taking a bus from her home in Rockville to her work in Alexandra, north of Johannesburg, was easier and cheaper for her because she did not have to commute twice.
”If I had to take a taxi to work, I would have to use two modes of transport and that would be expensive,” she told the paper.
Ngida is one of the hundreds of commuters who have been pulled off the buses since last week.
On Monday afternoon, the situation worsened and a commuter was hit by a brick when irate taxi drivers threw stones and bricks at their bus, the Sowetan reported.
The Johannesburg metro police officers who had been deployed to monitor the situation earlier on Monday were not available when chaos erupted later in the day.
Metro police spokesperson Superintendent Wayne Minnaar said: ”Officers were only deployed in the morning but not in the afternoon when the attacks took place.”
He said officers would be available to monitor the situation on Tuesday afternoon.
Barnes said the Johannesburg metro police department (JMPD) should be given authority to deal with ”terrorist taxi drivers if their provincial department fails to get off their butts”.
”It is in the taxpaying and petrol-paying motorists’ best interest that the taxis are tackled and forced to adhere to the same rules most of us abide by, because they affect all those who use the road.”
She urged commuters and all road users to use the JMPD emergency number — 011 375 5911 — to report cases of intimidation.
Police were not immediately available for comment but the Sowetan quoted spokesperson Superintendent Eugene Opperman as saying: ”We are not aware of such incidents.” — Sapa