Nothing could stop our taxi, not even a uniformed metro cop

“Don’t p**s me off — I am not going to stop!” shouted our taxi driver when a Tshwane metro police officer tried to pull his vehicle over while it was entering the capital city.

I chuckled but was shocked — the incident felt like an out-of-body experience. Taxi drivers don’t have such good reputations, and witnessing their stubbornness and aggression from the front passenger seat was a real eye-opener.

Our taxi continued into Pretoria, but the young police officer failed to do anything about the driver’s disobedience. He did not try to follow the minibus or force it to stop.

The driver switched off Ukhozi FM and instead played maskandi music, which he sang along to heartily throughout the trip, from a USB

My taxi experience was a mixed one. On the positive side, a polite marshal asked me where I was wanting to go when I arrived at Joburg’s Noord taxi rank. He also helpfully pointed me to a 22-seater minibus that needed just two more passengers to be filled up.

The rear seats were already occupied, so I had to jump in the front. While there had been no queue for the vehicle, I still found myself stuck in the middle of the front bench seat between an elderly Zulu driver on my right and a corporate-looking woman on my left.

Being a front-seat passenger, I had no choice but to count the money passed to the driver. However, as the fare was a round R60, counting it wasn’t a challenge.

The driver switched off Ukhozi FM and instead played maskandi music, which he sang along to heartily throughout the trip, from a USB.

A passenger began selling biltong to those about him, but the driver politely asked him not to do this, as he operates a strict no-eating policy in his taxi.

Just when I was about to remind the driver not to forget about me, as I had already told him I didn’t know how to get to where I needed to be, he beat me to it, saying: “Carry on straight. At those first robots, take a left turn and you’ll be at your destination.”