Santaco upbeat new law will reduce taxi violence and regulate e-hailing services

The South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) is optimistic the implementation of the National Land Transport Amendment Bill will reduce deadly violence within the transport industry.

President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the bill, from 2016, into law a week before starting his second term. The bill relates to public transport regulation and introduction of safety measures.

Santaco spokesperson Rebecca Phala described the bill as a comprehensive framework needed to provide clarity in the transport industry. 

“There was ambiguity with the operations of e-hailing operators, essentially it led to a lot of confusion on the ground, so [the bill] it's a step in the right direction. The government should speedily release those regulations so that we know what it means for us as taxi operators,” said Phala.

Violence between taxi drivers and drivers of e-hailing services such as Uber, Bolt, Didi, InDrive, and others has long been an issue in the transport industry. Over the years e-hailing drivers have been physically assaulted and had their cars burnt during tensions with taxi drivers who claim territories and view e-hailing drivers as threats to their business.

“We've never taken accountability for any of those accusations because it has never been proven that our operators are responsible. We don't take pride in being labelled as suspect number one when these incidents happen. We don't take responsibility for any of them,” Phala said.

She however said the transport regulations would reduce criminality on the roads.

“The bigger problem here is that there is criminality and there are no regulations on road-based transport, which leads to violence, which is very regrettable.” 

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