Struwwelpeter

NEXT year is election year. Struwwelpeter has just received a set of photographs from a reader demonstrating Zuma fast asleep in parliament on a number of occasions.

And then a shot of him dancing at one of his weddings – dressed in a pair of white sandshoes and leopard skin which barely covers his vast bare belly.

Do we really want this man to stay on as our president?

Consider the ANC’s achievements in the past 19 years:

– unemployment up by 60%

– South Africa is now the rape capital of the world and has the dubious distinction of being 140th on a list of 144 countries with the worst education

– the country where the most hijackings and murders take place

– the rand/dollar has deteriorated from R3.41 to R10.00 and the petrol price from R1.73 to R13.00/litre

– our defence force, once the iron fist of Africa, has become a laughing stock. It couldn’t defend Disneyland from an invasion of fluffy toys

– ten times more people in squatter camps and 1000% more illegal immigrants than in 1994

– dysfunctional roads, railways, military, police, municipal services, old age homes, hospitals and orphanages

– only country on the planet with so many convicted criminals in parliament

– 25% of all South African school girls are HIV+

– school girls had 100 000 abortions last year

– one of the countries with the highest unemployment rate

Viva ANC Viva? Really?

* * *

And now for a road test of the new safer, 18-seater and 35-seater maxi-ta taxis by our motoring correspondent, Toghetherness Shabalala, demon taxi driver of Diepsloot.

My test shows that the 35-seater holds 157 passengers, at a squeeze, so to speak. The roof managed to support a good three tons of luggage, chickens and building material.

This is a big advantage over the minibuses.

Despite a cargo of this magnitude, during my test run to Polokwane, the vehicle handled well and experienced very few serious accidents. At one time the back assembly became incandescent because the handbrake had been left on.

This ignited the petrol tank but most of the passengers managed to alight. We managed to repair the bus at the roadside with pieces of corrugated iron and a hammer and resumed our journey.

The bus, now reduced to a 26-seater, was in fact now much easier to handle, cornering at speed.

I liked the 18-seater. It can accommodate 77 passengers – nine under the seats and one in the spacious engine compartment (at reduced fare). It put up an impressive performance on the Soweto route but only after the electronic speed governor had been neutralised by striking it with a pipe wrench.

The wheels in both versions do not take BMW hubcaps – drivers are not going to like this.

The automatic hydraulic door is a big advantage over the minibus’ sliding door. If the passengers’ appendages are left sticking out, the sliding doors tend to guillotine them off, causing much smarting of the eyes.

I was pleased to note that the maxi-taxi’s automatic doors, as they swing shut, tend to relatively painlessly compress the passenger-load as opposed to trimming its edges. Passengers are going to welcome this.

Seat belts on all seats. This cuts by one third the number of passengers who are propelled to the front of the vehicle every time the brakes are applied. A warning: these buses may be safer than combi taxis but, when one is forced to take to the pavements in rush hour, they badly frighten the pedestrians.

However, the power steering does allow one to jink among the traffic lanes without rolling the vehicle, which is a big time saver. It was, I must say, rather nice driving a bus with sturdy side-panels which do not flex like lungs when one plays music and neither do the windows pop out, even when I play my Nine Inch Nails’ CD.

Thanks Adéle