Taxi drivers in South Africa are rude, reckless, arrogant and have no regard for other people on the road nor their passengers - generalisation of course. At some time or another, I am sure that every South African road user (taxi passengers possibly excluded) has wished that the driver of the taxi speeding past us, driving on the pavement, would simply drop down dead. Possibly with a good serving of agony, for good measure. Indeed I have. In fact, catch me when I’m driving in South Africa and I’d quite likely happily trade places with those Daveyton policemen in being able to drag a taxi driver behind my vehicle, and kill him. There I’ve said it, and yes, I’m a bad person. That's the rage which taxi drivers in South Africa instil in me. It's fair to say that I hate South African taxi drivers - loathe, detest, deplore, abhor them. On my social rating system, they sit right down at the bottom end, fractionally above rapists, murders, thieves and lawyers. Just below Government ministers and politicians. I’m sure you get the picture. As some would say, they are lower than shark poop. Which is why this recent story of the Daveyton police dragging Macia behind their police vehicle, killing him, places me in such a moral dilemma. In a perverse way I feel that some justice has been served on that deplorable community of taxi drivers, that the taxi industry is being served a dose of karma on behalf of all of us honest, law-abiding road users, well mostly law abiding, but we'd never admit otherwise publicly. It’s probably the kind of thing I’ve had many a pleasant dream about for years, right? Yet because this brutal act was committed by the police, everything changes. On the one hand I’m happy some justice has been served on that community of taxi driving scum - yes, remember I admitted earlier to being a horrible person – but because this brutal act was committed by the police, my satisfaction has been trumped by dread, by fear. These are the same people we trust with our national internal security, our lives. I'm now left feeling scared for my own safety and that of the nation. If another road user did this to the taxi driver in anger, I’d be shouting my support for them, pledging to assist in the legal case (actually not, I’m tight-fisted) and giving them a pat on the back on behalf of the nation, but the police just simply cannot do that. They’ve shown an ugly side – and I’m left wondering if they’ll do that to me one day. Will they drag me behind their vehicle because they think me guilty of something, because maybe I was a little cheeky to them? Perhaps they were just having a bad day, and I was the last straw for them? They’ve (further) broken our trust – further shown that we can’t really trust them with our safety, with that of our nation. They’ve shown they’ve got poor regard for the law themselves, or likely for the people they’re meant to serve and protect – and frankly, left me scared and totally concerned for the future of the nation. And worst of all, they’ve deprived me of what should have been a moment of joy.
I do not know Mido Maci, I do not know him as a person or what he did to cause the police to treat him as they did. As an individual, I hold nothing against him nor his family, and send my deepest regrets to his family and friends. But to the entire taxi industry – you need to change your attitudes to reflect the service industry you’re supposed to work in. Until then, I despise you all.
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