Taxi Wars In South Africa
The term taxi war is usually used to refer to the turf wars fought between taxi associations and individual minibus taxi drivers in South Africa, from the late 1980s onwards. These taxi wars are still raging to the present day.
The multi-billion rand minibus taxi industry carries over 60% of South Africa's commuters. Generally speaking, these commuters are all of the lower economic class. Wealthy individuals drive their own car for safety and convenience. The industry is almost entirely made up of 16-seater commuter Toyota HiAce buses which are sometimes unsafe or not roadworthy. Minibus taxi drivers are well known for their disregard for the road rules and their proclivity for dangerously overloading their vehicles with passengers.
Due to an effectively unregulated market and the fierceness of competition for passengers and lucrative routes, taxi operators band together to form local and national associations. These associations soon exhibited mafia-like tactics, including the hiring of hit-men and all-out gang warfare. These associations also engaged in anti-competitive price fixing.
Read more about Taxi Wars In South Africa: Causes, Death Toll, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words taxi, wars, south and/or africa:
“I have done almost every human activity inside a taxi which does not require main drainage.”
—Alan Brien (b. 1925)
“I had the idea that there were two worlds. There was a real world as I called it, a world of wars and boxing clubs and children’s homes on back streets, and this real world was a world where orphans burned orphans.... I liked the other world in which almost everyone lived. The imaginary world.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“The Great South Beach of Long Island,... though wild and desolate, as it wants the bold bank,... possesses but half the grandeur of Cape Cod in my eyes, nor is the imagination contented with its southern aspect.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“For Africa to me ... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)