Being a little bit in the middle of nowhere, Grahamstonians, scholars and Rhodes students, often require a shuttle service to get around – be it to the airport or to a weekend beach getaway. But after almost four years, my estimation of Grahamstown’s shuttle services is decreasing more rapidly than I eat cheese!
In first year, Rhodes’s free transport (which isn’t free anymore) was sufficient to get me to the airport and back for holidays. Then, for a cousin’s wedding, I had to sniff around for another option and found Shuttle Service A. The trip to the airport was pleasant enough. I sat in the front seat of the kombi and the driver told me all about his work with gangs in Cape Town. Being an inquisitive, adventure hungry, community do-gooder, I was fascinated. On the outskirts of Port Elizabeth, the religious indoctrination began. Oh joy! I couldn’t get out of the kombi fast enough when we reached the airport.
My return flight landed in the evening and a different driver was waiting in the arrivals hall for me and two other passengers. He gave me a friendly greeting and introduced me to his wife, who graced me with an icy stare. And so the ride from hell began...
“Wie’t my gef*kken-miss call?”
“Wie de fok het my al heirdie f*kken please call me’s gestuur?”
“Ek ken nie hierdie f*kken nommer nie!”
The foul language poured out of the wife’s mouth like sewerage from a Thai storm water drain during the monsoon. To make matters worse, the driver was talking on his phone in peak PE traffic and paying no attention to the road.
By the time we got out of PE, it was pitch dark and the N2 with all its infamous road works loomed ominously ahead. But not to worry, we had an audiotape to keep us entertained... With dramatic sermons about the Lord’s goodness. He will save our souls!
Well, believers and non-believers alike needed the Lord’s protection that night. The driver drove like a lunatic, frequently straying over the purposefully positioned double solid lines until Bham! The car’s side mirror was hit off by an on-coming car. It took a little while before the driver realised what had happened and then “Wat de f*k!” In a flurry of swear words, screaming brakes and squealing tyres, the driver did a violent U-turn on the dark, dangerous, winding road and started chasing the car we’d hit, which by this time was just two red tail light specks in the distance. The driver floored it and when he eventually realised he wasn’t going to catch the guy, did another extremely dangerous U-turn and we carried on with our trip from hell. This incident didn’t stop him from driving like a hooligan and the Belgian woman sitting next to me, whispered, “Is it usually like this here?” Well yes it is. Since this incident I have heard numerous horrific complaints about this shuttle company.
Needless to say, I have never used Shuttle Service A again. My dad lodged an official complaint against the driver and informed the company that we were boycotting them.
So, the search for a different shuttle service began. I was impressed by Shuttle Service B’s punctuality, commitment to road safety and the convenience of getting picked up on my doorstep. I have been using them since my second year. But alas, all good things come to an end. Due probably to high demand, Shuttle Service B now also offers discounted end- and beginning- -of-term airport shuttle bookings. What one makes up in price, one loses in convenience, as you have to drag your huge suitcase from opposite ends of town to climb onto a big hired bus in front of Union. Now, instead of offering something different, Shuttle B has become the same as Rhodes’s airport transport. For other times of the term, the driver will pick you up and drop you off at home. But the past three times I’ve used Shuttle B, the driver has been distracted - often getting phone calls about bookings and going much faster than he should be.
So, with my choices dwindling, I decided to try out Shuttle Service C this weekend. The friendly driver picked two of us up in his little car and drove at a relaxed, but reasonable pace to Port Alfred. My only complaint – the missing driver’s window (the car had been broken into during the week), which meant that I had the pleasure of getting closely acquainted with Hurricane Katrina on the back seat. At least it wasn’t raining.
On the way back on Monday afternoon the driver had covered the entire window hole with clear masking tape. The noise was too much. By the time we were 5km’s out of Port Alfred, I had dug my nails so far into my hands that they were almost coming out the other side. So, in Bathurst we asked the driver to please take the tape off the window. So far so good, until the driver got a call about a missing airport passenger. Then he alternated between driving at a snail’s pace and swerving across the road as he concentrated on finding numbers on his phone, waiting for sufficient signal and making phone calls. Luckily this didn’t last too long, but long enough for me to lose complete confidence in the driver’s abilities and have me wishing once again that I had my own car.
All these shuttle service driver’s could probably drive the Grahamstown-PE road with their eyes shut. But, with so many lives in the balance, having a heavenly name or good memory is not going to stop an accident from happening. Rather, a vigilant, responsible, safety-conscious driver is more likely to do this.
Shuttle services are providing a service to the public and part of that service is ensuring that their passengers get to their destination safely. I am aware that many shuttles use their car as an office away from the office, but it is a criminal offence and extremely dangerous to talk on one’s cell phone while driving. What right do passengers have when using a shuttle service? Do I have the right to complain in the car? I would much rather the driver pull off for phone calls and arrive at my destination a little but late, than not arrive at all.
Published in Grocott's Mail on 17 May 2011
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