Taxi Owners: Violence Won’t Clarify the Disputes

By: Luviwe Pinda

Why is it that when taxi owners have against the commuters in every city or town we are based at? Recently, one of the drivers insisted that the passengers should get into their taxi from Alice to Fort Beaufort. Furthermore, when they (passengers) refuse, they become rude and become violent for no reason.  There is no law that says that prohibits passengers from hitch- hiking. Simply, this is because they’re trying to save costs at the same time.

Taxi owners often feel intimidated, by attacking the drivers of the motor vehicles, and end up constraining violence for no particular reason and at the same time, innocent lives are lost.  Additionally, when they conduct strike, passengers are then forced to use other alternative transport to get to work and back home.

Another case in point, taxi owners fear that their routes which they usually control are often targeted by other taxi owners from other associations. The question we always ask ourselves as commuters, is how the Department of Transport trying to decrease this status quo from developing further, and what can be done to resolve some of the issues commuters have against the taxi owners?