My fellow South Africans, the working people who rely on the taxis of the Cape Town environs have my sympathies as they always seem to get the dirty end of the stick.
There is nothing more annoying than being prejudiced against because of a situation you did not cause.
Case in point, the taxi immobilisation action being taken because of what is perceived as the biased application of the traffic laws on them, in order to keep ‘death off the road’.
As science will tell you, an action creates a reaction – so, no taxi ride home results in a long walk (not to freedom) to home.
Selfishness and self interest is the winner for the taxi drivers while the losers are their paying fares.
An interesting offshoot of this was a point made on radio by a Cape Town man who did sympathise with the walking workers.
He suggested that better urbanisation planning of the housing of employers and employees would eliminate the need for long distance transportation of the employees.
Indeed, he advocated both groups should be living in the same suburbs in town so that all were equal in status too. He obviously has not read “Animal Farm”! Notwithstanding his argument, I know of only one town where such a housing arrangement has been implemented with limited success.
Because of real estate prices, ground nearer facilities or beauty spots are more costly than other areas.
So, the rich build palaces near the beach and us normal people build next to the shops and along the high street as the wealthy do not want the noise, plus they will not need public transport.
Well, I stayed in a purpose built suburb designed by Cuban engineers, which was design to suit the varying financial status of residents.
The concept was simple. The suburb was of a square design with two roads leading in from the main town road, and this road looked back on itself to the main road.
The main road carried the town traffic and was the bus route. Therefore, the front plots nearest this main road were similar to the RDP houses without a garage, as these were domestic worker accommodation and due to low pay, would not own a car and also they would be able to walk to their place of work in the suburb.
The houses further in had larger plots and either a single or double garage. A perfect world it seems. Perfect for what this gentleman on radio was postulating but, not easy to apply now unless you demolish buildings and send the squatters back to where the came from and that won’t happen!
Also, the taxi associations would not be thrilled with the reinvention of a suburbia that would not require the workers to use their transportation network.
So, let’s not try to create the perfect world as it has been tried before over centuries and always fallen flat because of greed.
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