Woman bus-driving champ seeks world win
SINCE she was 17, Thandekile Shabane wanted to be behind the wheel of “big things”.
Now, nine years later, the pint-sized mom from Umgababa, 40km south of Durban, sits in the driver’s seat of a 43-seat bus ferrying passengers across the city.
Not only has Shabane achieved her dream of driving something big, she happens to be very good at it. She was named South Africa’s best bus driver last month and will travel to Poland in August to compete for the honour of being the world’s number one.
She works for the eThekwini municipality’s Durban transport unit.
She got the job on her third attempt in July 2012 after having been turned away twice.
“In Grade 11, all my friends were talking about doing jobs like engineering and I thought why don’t I become a pilot? But I am only 1.4m tall and you have to be 1.6m.
“Then I thought about driving buses or trucks. I don’t know why I have always wanted to drive big vehicles. I just really like them,” she said.
At 9am on Thursday, Sha- bane left The Workshop shopping centre bus station on an hour-long round trip through Durban’s central business district to Umbilo, a middle-class area between Durban’s central and southern suburbs.
It is a route she drives often — and several of her regular passengers are grateful she does.
“There are a lot of pensioners that live here and a lot of oldage homes,” said Helen Horner, who is in her 70s.
“We love it when we see her. She parks close to the pavement to make it easier for us to get on and off.
“She always smiles and she’s very friendly. And, of course, she’s a very good driver. She just seems like a natural,” said Horner.
Shabane is not used to the limelight and shrugs when she hears the compliments.
“It’s really nice when people say they like my driving and when they say they want to vote for me as the best driver.
“At first, people got on my bus and would comment that I am very young and am a woman. They would judge me.
“But I just want to show them what I can do,” she said.
In September last year, Shabane competed in the regional Bus Driver of the Year competition, which is supported by the Department of Transport.
She won the regional, provincial and national legs of the competition and was named South Africa’s best bus driver in January.
“I got to fly to Cape Town and Johannesburg and now I get to go to Poland.
“I just want it to come now,” she said. The full moon greeted residents of Athlone in Cape Town in all its splendour as dawn broke on Thursday this week