Deadly taxis free to operate

(“SAFE scholar transport a right”, The Star, May 3) refers: With the article is a picture of a taxi with the sub-heading, “packed like sardines”.

Your article said the taxi was carrying 33 children and the driver had two warrants for his arrest. The driver was fined R1 500 for overloading.

Looking at the photograph, the front left hand wheel can be clearly seen and the wheel is supposed to have six attachment bolts. One stud is missing completely and on another stud the nut is missing!

First of all the owner of the vehicle should be criminally charged for putting such a vehicle on the road. It’s sad that the driver should be given only such a small fine for driving a vehicle in such an unroadworthy condition and overloading it with 33 children.

The traffic officials who stopped the vehicle should be dismissed for negligence.

It appears that the vehicle was not confiscated and taken off the road but allowed to continue on its “merry” way, endangering other road users.

I live in Glenvista in the south of Joburg. I ride along the main roads, Comaro St and Bellairs Drive in this area and see many taxis daily. Not a day goes by that I don’t see taxis that are in a disgracefully unroadworthy condition.

Number plates are missing, the doors do not close properly, the vehicle “crabs” along as obviously it has at sometime been in a major accident and the wheels are out of alignment, lights are not working, windows broken, etc.

One very obvious and exceeding dangerous defect as you ride behind them is that many taxis have shock-absorbers missing or broken loose.

Using the roads in Joburg it appears that all the scrap taxis are used in the south. Surely the traffic inspectors can see and do something about these dangerous vehicles. Glenvista