PIRATE TAXI OPERATORS WARNED NOT TO TAKE CHANCES

Pirate taxi operators or illegal taxi drivers have been warned not to take chances in turning their private vehicles into taxis to ferry passengers to various destinations this festive season.

This warning came from Mamelodi Local and Long Distance Taxi Association (MALLDTA) Public Relations Officer Mpho Mukhari.

“Each and every festive season we as an association receive complaints from our passengers regarding incidents of robberies, car hijackings and human trafficking perpetuated by pirate or illegal taxis, so we urge our passengers to only board taxis which have stickers which indicate the taxi association that they are affiliated to,” said Mukhari.

“The MALLDTA sticker is blue in colour and the Mamelodi Amalgamated Taxi Association (MATA) stickers are red in colour,” he said.

“Christmas festive season is always a very busy period so we don’t want to have incidents whereby passengers’s goods are stolen by pirate taxi operators and we therefore urge passengers to board taxis at taxi ranks and not at hiking spots,” emphasised Mkhari.

Mkhari also urged passengers to avoid bringing along with them large amounts of goods which then get packed on top of taxis as these may result in no compensation being paid should an accident occur.

Mkhari also urged both passengers and drivers not to drink while taking taxi trips.

He also urged passengers not to be afraid of reporting unruly taxi drivers to MALLDTA offices.

“We as an association are going to deal harshly with unruly or drunk taxi drivers and we are going to expel such drivers, and once they have been expelled from MALLDTA there is no way that they will be hired in MATA due to their unruly behaviour,” he said.

Mukhari expressed his heartfelt thanks to passengers who have been supporting the organisation throughout the years and pointed out that as MALLDTA they always try to help needy members of the community where there are cases of funerals with families lacking transport in this regard.