adminTHE behaviour of kombi crews leaves a lot to be desired. Granted, we cannot paint all the crews with the same brush but we have had too many incidents of abuse of passengers, especially girls and young women, that have been reported.
It is our view that many incidents of abuse are probably going unreported. We are aware that the commuter omnibuses are owned by individuals out there whom we believe value the safety of passengers and subscribe to the tenets of respect to the next person, moreso the one that gives you business.
It is about time kombi operators employ a strict vetting system so that we rid our transport system of the rotten apples that keep soiling the image of the commuter transport system.
When commuter omnibuses organised themselves into associations, it was our expectation that we were going to see more orderly service and improved customer care. Are the crews still being taken through customer relations courses or poor commuters are just left at the mercy of perverts with driversa�� licences or just relatives that can be trusted with handling money hence given the role of conductor?
Elsewhere in this issue we carry an article of a conductor that allegedly abused a young girl aboard their vehicle after all the passengers had alighted. We also have yet another article of two commuter omnibus drivers who allegedly gang-raped another teenager after allegedly refusing to stop at her dropping off point.
We have had countless cases of schoolchildren being taken advantage of by some of these kombi crews and what happens in those vehicles in broad daylight at termini can be quite shocking.
Many young impressionable pupils use these vehicles everyday and it is important that people who handle our children be persons that can be trusted.
What happens with convicted child abusers? How are they rehabilitated, and how do we make sure that they are not put in positions where they can easily be a danger to children again? Is there a code of conduct in the urban transport industry that we can use to measure these crews against?
We also would like to implore our young people to be careful and not jeopardise their future by being influenced through peer pressure into unequal relationships with some of these transport crews.
Parents also play a big role in cautioning our children though it becomes a problem where these crews force the girls into acts that they would not have consented to.
We believe if these crews are made aware of the importance of passengers in their trade they will be able to draw a line so that they can be trusted to ferry passengers, both young and old, to their destinations safely.
Also, the cultured crews should also play their part by raising the alarm on crews that abuse passengers so that they do not soil the image of the transport crews, some of whom are entrusted with the lives of young children from as young as ECD classes daily. We applaud such crews and urge them to keep up the good work.A� Bad apples must be exposed and punished though. .
Online Reporter