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Roadsafety Campaign
Manager of the Wanderers Taxi Rank in Johannesburg, Chris Ngobeni, has urged taxi drivers to obey the rules of the road and drive responsibly in order to reduce the number of road fatalities.
This, as thousands of people are leaving Gauteng, making their way home to family and friends in other provinces and neighbouring countries.
Traffic volumes are expected to continue to increase until Christmas Eve.
Ngobeni says the safety of travellers is a top priority, and they expect the rank to remain a hive of activity and get even busier as more people travel home just before Christmas.
“We are doing our level best to manage the rank as always every year. As we always have this situation from the 1st till the 24th of December, we are busy. We have security all over the rank who are controlling people, checking the crime and checking if people are not getting robbed and if people are drinking within the ranks.”
Ngobeni says they need extra space to accommodate all travellers, especially during the festive season when the rank gets busier than usual.
“As you know, we have nine provinces plus inter-provincial plus cross-border within the rank. When they erected this rank, they didn’t expect so many people. At the moment, the rank is overcrowded in such a way that we are pleading with the government to give us extra space to transport our people.”
Meanwhile, travellers say they are excited to go home after a long year of hard work. “I am looking forward to enjoying this festive season with my family, and I hope we travel safe.”
“I really want to spoil my family this Christmas and cross over to the new year with them,” says another traveller.
Earlier this week scores of people were arrested at various roadblocks across the Gauteng province for drinking and driving, expired licence discs and overloading their vehicles. under control.”
