Santaco ‘concerned' Aarto will target taxi drivers
The South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) fears the taxi industry might be targeted by traffic officials once the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences Act (Aarto) is rolled out in Johannesburg and Tshwane.
Earlier this year, the BusinessInsider revealed that the taxi industry is worth an estimated R50 billion a year, with 69% of South African households using taxis.
The high demand often translates to long hours on the road for drivers.
Santaco spokesperson Thabisho Molelekwa says this occupational hazard is likely to leave their drivers vulnerable to multiple offenses.
"The industry is the one business that spends between 15 and 20 hours a day on the road every day and as a result offenses are bound to happen, mistakes are bound to happen. We are concerned that if the Aarto was to be applied without, or at the exclusion of those inputs we've made, this would leave the industry as the prime target in terms of application of the demerit system.”
The bill was gazetted on Tuesday but awaits implementation.
In 2015, the Aarto Bill was introduced to Parliament for deliberation in an attempt to counteract rising death tolls as a result of reckless driving on the country's roads.
Molelekwa says the industry is prepared to address the issue of reckless driving and unroadworthy vehicles.
"We are equally concerned about these accidents that are happening. Whether or not taxi drivers are wrong is another matter, but we are concerned that so many lives are being lost, so many families are being robbed of these lives. It's a challenge we are trying to deal with."
However, he maintains that the N1 crash on Sunday that left 10 people dead was not the fault of the driver.
"We want to put it on record that in terms of the reports we found we got from the team that we dispatched to the accident scene, the accident was not caused by the driver."