WITH the misconception that most accidents are caused by taxi operators, the Road Accident Fund (RAF) offered health services to the taxi drivers of different ranks in Randfontein, West Rand on Monday, 6 November.
They gave them a health inspection, which included testing their high blood pressure and eyesight.
“On the road, there are a couple of aspects that cause road accidents. These are the vehicle itself and secondly, a dominant part which is a human factor, it's people who sleep while driving and others who can’t see properly,” the deputy minister of transport, Lisa Mangcu, said.
RAF's acting regional manager, Thokozani Kunene told Daily Sun they brought their driver’s wellness bus to the taxi rank to assist taxi drivers by attending to them medically.
“We are here to assist, especially with the eyes. We know that most accidents occur because people do not see clearly. We will also offer spectacles if they are found to be having eyesight challenges. “We will also assist with steps to follow in claiming for RAF after an accident,” Kunene said.
Randfontein Taxi Association chairman Elijah Duma told Daily Sun that among the challenges faced by their association, illegal transport invading their ranks stood out.
“We have given the government our challenges as a taxi industry. Our challenges are that we have a lot of illegal taxi operators that are operating within our ranks. We have vehicles that do not have licences. We would like to request an intervention from the government to come on board and assist by removing these illegal taxi operators,” he said.
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Duma said illegal taxi operators were flooding their market, and the legit members ended up not having money to able to sustain their livelihoods.
“Another challenge is that we have other taxi associations that are entering our space. We need assistance from the government,” Duma said.
He also raised the issue of dirty taxi ranks and asked for assistance from the local municipality so they could always be cleaned.
“We, however, also have a duty to play as the association to ensure that the rank is always clean,” he said.
Taxi commuter, Joyce Mngomezulu said it was not even healthy to eat at the rank as it was super filthy.
“Even us, commuters, contribute to this because after eating we just throw papers on the ground even when there are dustbins close to us,” she said.
Deputy minister Mangcu had a meeting with the taxi association and agreed on how they could best help the association with the challenges they came across.
Mangcu said they had partnered with the stakeholders on the ground, and they have embarked on cleaning of the taxi ranks and have started by cleaning the taxi ranks at Randfontein.
