Probably less than two birr depending on who’s behind the steering wheel

 “Share your seat or get off this car,” that is what you will be told by an assistant when an extra passenger is about to board a taxi mini-bus that was meant to carry only 12.

The more passengers in one trip, the more the driver and his assistant will make than what the owner expects of them.

So the expression on the title may not be an exaggeration.

For the taxi drivers and their assistants, passengers are just entities they translate into cash – cargo which are no different than a sack of potatoes.

I was among the twelve passengers who luckily survived an accident which involved the taxi we rode on and a police pick-up truck.

After another mini-bus overtook the one we were in, the driver began to accelerate.

The speed prevented the driver from maneuvering the vehicle and the impact was big at collision. The truck flipped to its side and slid some distance.

The traffic officer investigating the accident says while the pick up was responsible for the offence, the taxi could have avoided the collision if it had not been speeding.

Police officers who were at the back of the truck were thrown off but miraculously did not sustain heavy injuries.

Some of us in the taxi were banged up but grateful that our pain was not as severe as the driver’s.

Dazed, we went out of the taxi of which the assistant, by the way, was definitely younger than 14.

Somewhere else in the city, a five-year-old was killed the same day when he was hit by another mini-bus.

The most horrible of all however was an accident that occurred the next day at Meskel Square. It claimed the lives of two and injured four critically.

“A severed body part was discovered in the taxi after it was brought here to our compound,” a traffic official said.

Probably, the passenger that died had paid 65 cents for that fateful ride.

Currently, there are over 160,000 cars roaming the streets of Addis, and 15,000 of these are taxis.  They constitute a mere 9 % of the total traffic in the city, but account for the largest share of accidents and offences.

In the third week of last month, the number of traffic offences committed was 3,800. Taxis were responsible for some 500 of the offences.
“The taxi drivers take it as a priority to make money. People who drive their own private cars commit offences either because they are thinking of other things while driving or have been drinking. Taxi drivers however commit offences deliberately, it is all about money,” says Sergeant Assefa Mezgebu, Public Relations head at the Addis Ababa Traffic Police.

After a day’s work, a mini-bus owner expects 100 birr from the driver and his assistant. Expenses such as fuel, lunch, the assistants’ payment and other daily consumptions are also covered by the money which is made during the day.

Meeting the 100 birr agreement and covering the costs mentioned above, taxi drivers agree, is rarely a problem.

The cause for the recklessness is the extra cash that the driver and assistant so desperately attempt to make.

“You have to fight for that extra cash. You have to get ahead of the other taxi working the same route, get more people to transport per trip, even if it means breaking the rules. You also have to keep your mind on an assistant who will also try to stash away some of the money, and you need to also concentrate about the driving. How else can one make it with the high fuel prices and cost of living,” said one taxi driver.

How do you control such cocky drivers who would risk anything to get an extra 50 birr or so?

According to Sergeant Assefa, plans are underway to implement a system by which records are kept of repeated traffic offenders.

“Beyond a certain point, it will not be possible for such offenders to continue to drive on the streets of Addis. Some will permanently lose their licenses others will be forced to go back and take driving lessons.”

Furthermore, anyone who is to drive commercial passenger vehicles will not be allowed to do so without first applying for a special license and taking tests for it.

Also to be issued are special ID’s for each public transport vehicle driver.

“It will no more be possible for a taxi driver to commit an offence while on one taxi and then just quit and move to another without paying the fine,” Sergeant Assefa says.

The focus however is not only on taxi drivers. A new driving lesson curriculum is also being developed to ensure that the training will equip drivers with the necessary skills.

In an effort to curb the problem of licenses being issued without proper training and test, new mechanisms are also in the pipeline.

Previously, the examiners had face-to-face contact with the individuals who take the driving test. That facilitated corruption.

The authorities say that will change as cameras will be the means by which the actual test will be monitored in the future.

Until such measures are put in place, however, the Addis Ababa Traffic Police say they will take stringent measures against traffic rule offenders in the city, particularly taxis.

Sergeant Assefa says: “We know from experience that if you go loose on them they will be encouraged to commit more offenses. Therefore, a clear directive has been given to traffic officers that they should not pass an offence committed by taxi drivers.”

The speed limit in the city for public transport vehicles is a maximum of 40 km/hour.

Do all public transport drivers know this? And if they do, do they respect that limit? How many are fined for exceeding this specified limit?
The answer to that is just to observe at what speed the Anbessa public buses travel within the city.

The Addis Ababa Traffic Police admits that it rarely fines drivers for exceeding speed limits, more because of its incapacity to enforce that regulation.

“If you are to stop someone and tell them that they were exceeding speed limit, you need to have the proper equipment. We do not have them, so it becomes a difficult task. This is also true for the offence of driving under the influence of Alcohol. While we are sure that a driver had more to drink than is safe, because we do not have the equipment to quantify the level, it makes our job difficult.”

Just to prove a point, as soon as I got out of the Traffic office, I asked the driver of the mini-bus I boarded on what the speed limit was for taxis.

“I think it is 60.”  He was hitting well above that as we traveled.

By Namrud Berhane