THE BACKSEAT OF BEYOND
Leigh-Anne Hunter finds out what drives some of Joburg’s metered cab drivers
THE TROUPER
WATCHING him, you could see an old man driving a sardine-tin car that wheezes along Joburg’s streets. Or Casanova in his chariot.
“That’s what I used to call myself,” says Hendrik de Beer, 78, a Benoni-born taxi driver. He wears a pinkie ring and sideburns, like he did as a rookie 50 years ago.
The seats of his second-hand Nissan Sentra are worn, like old skin. His first taxi was a ’59 Dodge Kingsway. “Beautiful. I painted it red. Girls liked it.”
A Rose Taxis driver, his father persuaded De Beer, then 28 and a gent’s hairdresser, to join the firm. Like his father, every day he slipped on a white uniform, with a rose stitched over his heart.
He had clients at the Carlton Hotel. Women in sequined dresses who filled his car with their perfume. “I danced with millionaires’ daughters.” He drove film stars — once David Hasselhoff from Knight Rider. “These days, you don’t really meet them.”
Slowly, metered taxis moved out of the city
We’re in Rosebank. Waiting. Other cabbies doze in their cars, smoke on the curb. “A guy can wait all day.” He’ll scout less crowded ranks — wherever there’s business. “You might get a R1 000 fare, or R70. It’s the luck of the draw. What we want is the airport, but we don’t get it now with the Gautrain.”
His two-way radio crackles with constant chatter from dispatch. “189 ... 189?” He’s a number, not a name. A
WHEN THEY DROVE OFF WITH MY TAXI, IT FELT LIKE MY TRUE LOVE WAS LEAVING ME
Hendrik de Beer
yellowed map book lies on the seat, with a lunchbox his wife packs.
He rubs his hands together. “Crumbs, the cold is terrible, and in the summer, that heat.” Ventilation shafts sputter nothing but dust.
He shows me his meter. “It’s sealed, see? You mustn’t crook people. I’m a believer, you know.” He rescues animals from the road. “The other day, it was a turtledove.”
Leaving home in Alberton at 4am, he can work a 10-hour shift — if there are jobs. Weekly he goes to “the office” on De Korte street to pay up to R1 500 in “dues”. He won’t say how much he earns.
“I used to get a reasonable income.” Enough to raise two kids. “But today things are a bit bad. We were among the first few taxi companies, and the biggest. Now you see lots of taxis. I doubt some are legal.”
He has been hijacked twice. “When they drove off with my taxi, it felt like my true love was leaving me.” He was left with no income for weeks.
Sometimes, the threat comes from inside. “One guy told me: ‘If you don’t switch off the meter, I’ll eff you up’. I said, ‘Listen mate, you’re a bit too small’. My nose bled like hell.
“I still believe people are good; 10% attack you, 20% won’t pay you. But the rest are nice people.”
He measures his days in callouts and burnt coffee. No, he wouldn’t change anything. “We can work as we feel. It’s a free life.”
THE TECHIE
“I’M sorry, ma’m, but did you just say Chihuahua?” As an Uber driver, Chere Molahlehi had chauffeured everyone from oil tycoons to private-school brats, but never anything furry. All the way to a Pretoria salon, as she lay on the back seat sans cage, he feared he’d feel teeth in his neck.
In January, the 35-year-old started driving for the global app-based “taxi alternative” that launched in SA last year.
As an UberBlack driver — the high-end alternative to UberX, currently offered only in Cape Town — he must own a top-end car. He had to borrow money from family for a deposit on an Audi A4. He’s paying it back in instalments of R4 300 a month.
His Uber smartphone beeps: a new pick-up. He has six seconds to accept the job before it goes to another driver, and 11 minutes to get to this client. He can’t be late.
There is no meter and, with geolocation, no call centre: he’s instantly sent a map and the client’s details on his phone. Its GPS picks up the nearest driver.
But technology has its drawbacks, especially if the client has had a few drinks. “I’ve woken up the wrong people, who swear at me and call security, because a client types in the wrong address on their smartphone,” says Molahlehi.
He rushes to open the door for a client. This is instilled in training, along with a smart dress code. “You can’t work for Uber in sneakers.”
An executive slides onto the polished seats and reads the news- paper Molahlehi has left there for his clients. He buys a range of dailies, along with mints and bottled water.
“I feel safer knowing who’s picking me up,” the passenger says. Clients are sent the driver’s details on their smartphone — photo, name, registration number.
You pay with your credit card. Molahlehi isn’t allowed to accept cash tips. “Which radio station would you prefer, sir?” he asks. “Is the temperature to your satisfaction?”
He gets shoulder pain from driving, sometimes for over 12 hours a stretch on weekends, but won’t take pills. “It’s too risky.”
He isn’t stopped for long at road-