Taxis And The Lost Valuables

Ike Vavi
Correspondent | Monday September 6, 2010 00:00

The taxi driver responds by asking her if she remembers the registration number of the taxi. The only thing that the poor woman remembers is the colour of the taxi. 'I only remember that it was a white taxi that is driven by this dark in complexion guy,' she says.

Unfortunately the rank is littered with white taxis. She is asked to go and enquire from the next line of taxis. In the meantime, the only thing that the driver can do is to ask for the number of the woman so that in the event that he hears anything about, he can inform her. 'It is not going to be easy. I can tell you!' he reveals.

Such experiences seem to be a common occurrence in the taxi ranks. Patronella Ramogwana, a passenger says the root cause of the problem is that Batswana generally do not care about the registration numbers of the taxis when they use them. 'This makes it very difficult for them to get help when they have a problem or lose their valuables. Only a few are able to identify the taxis that they are using,' she says.

'People will only remember the colour or sometimes the face of the drivers of taxis. Unfortunately the colour of the taxi alone cannot be an effective way of identifying the vehicle because many taxis share colours,' she explains.

Tanyala Moipolai of Goshwe is worried that the problem of lost valuables in taxis continues to haunt Batswana despite the fact that vehicles have names inscribed on them. 'Every taxi operator is required to inscribe very visible names on the side of their taxis. This was supposed to make life easy for the passengers in terms of identifying the taxis,' she says.

She is disappointed that people are not making use of the information inscribed on the side of the taxis. 'They just see them as useless writings. This explains why when they forget things in the taxis, they are not able to recall the name that appears on the taxi. Such writings even include the phone number(s) of the owners of the taxis. It is important for passengers to get into the habit of using this piece of information when they get into taxis,' she advises.

Onias Pindani of Maitengwe, a taxi driver in Francistown says people need to acknowledge the fact that the writings on the taxis and the number plates of cars are very important. 'Unfortunately our customers are not concerned much about this. They only focus on reaching their destinations,' he laments.