Sardines-to-go: crazy cabbie crams 49 kids into a 16-seat vehicle

By David Menzies

There’s an old transportation joke that is oft-repeated in the developing world. Question: how many people can fit on the bus? Answer: one more.

Alas, it appears as though a 26-year-old South African taxi driver embraced that joke as a template for standard operating procedure. Incredibly, the driver recently shoehorned 49 school children, aged three to 13, into a minibus that has seating for 16. That works out to three kids per seat – plus one in the cargo bay.

It gets worse: blood tests administered by the police revealed that the driver was an astonishing five times over the legal alcohol limit.

South Africa’s National Transport spokesman Logan Maistry understated the obvious when he noted that the children were so tightly crammed into the minibus they could barely move.

Maistry says law enforcement officers will intensify inspections of public transportation vehicles. He said transportation companies and drivers have responsibilities to protect the lives of commuters and that they shouldn’t only be interested in making money. (Cue laugh track here.)

With soccer’s World Cup just months away, South African police are allegedly cracking down on rogue taxi operators in the hope that foreign visitors will use minibuses to get around the country.

According to the U.K.’s Telegraph, the British High Commission in South Africa recently recommended that Team England fans should avoid hiring their own cars and instead hire chauffeurs to travel around the country. Hired cars could be targeted by criminals.

In the meantime, millions of mostly black South Africans use minibus taxis to travel between townships and cities. But many minibuses are barely roadworthy and fatal accidents are commonplace.

As for the minibus driver, he faces charges of both drunk driving and overloading. The good news: as he awaits trial, he won’t get a chance to drive anything as he’s being held behind bars.

And here’s hoping this cram-happy cabbie has to share his cell with an excess of rotund roommates… just so he gets to experience what it felt like to be a child riding in his malodorous minibus.

Comments

LMFAO! Ok, I don't mean to laugh at the plight of those children, but this story cracked me up. Poor kids! Omg hahahahaha. What a jerk that driver was, and to be drunk to boot? Well, I am glad he is behind bars now, but I can only imagine what that "mini bus" looked like stuffed with 49 kids....an African clown car (NOT intended as a racist statement, just a joke to you bleeding hearts who get offended over everything). Oh man that is awful, but horribly funny. I am glad those kids are all ok and that someone reported this moron!

Cram him into a cell? Use a VERY dull razor blade to slowly and painfully castrate him. Let him personally explain to each parent why he is so stupid! Stick a very prickly cactus up his butt and another one up his d1ck.

What's the legal blood alcohol limit there .01 ??? Five times over the limit. eh. lol.

Sounds like the time in the early 70ties when I came out of a logging camp after working about 30 hours without sleep. I had half a beer that's all. The cop was convinced I was drunk. Because being so tired I looked it. Then came the breathelizer. I was watching the needle keep going up and up and up. I got nailed for 1.2 yes that gave me a lot of faith in the law. lol.

Anybody that would believe that b*llshit should come over and I''ll sell them the Faser River Bridge.

Rikedy - try this one on for size if you want "drunk driving"

Drunkest Driver Ever
May 24th, 2006 · No Comments
From the Star Web Site – VILNIUS, Lithuania — Vidmantas Sungaila, 41, registered 7.27 grams per liter of alcohol in his blood repeatedly on different devices after he was pulled over Saturday for driving his truck down the center of a two-lane highway 60 miles from the capital, Vilnius.Lithuania’s legal limit is 0.4 grams per liter.“This guy should have been lying dead, but he was still driving,” said Saulius Skvernelis, director of the national police traffic control service. “He was of high spirits and grinning the whole time he was questioned.”

Now I bet you want to know his BAC. Without getting all math crazy on you it was 0.727 he was more that 20 times there legal limit.

Now I know what your thinking. “Only 0.727 shit that is not even as drunk as Cooter Brown! I was more drunk (drunker) than that at my 16th birthday party. But I was smart enough to walk home”.

America, are we going to let some dude from a little county in Europe win this challenge? I say we all go out to the nearest bar (within walking distance) from your house and do 50 shots of

Well it is obvious this cabbie is a schmuck, but my question is... who were the kids? Where did a drunk cabbie find the kids? At a school? A daycare? You would think that a group of kids that large had to be accompanied by some teachers, nannies... workers of some sort. Did none of them think to stop the guy... or question the logistics before even one child was loaded on the bus? Who was taking care of the kids?

LOL this whole story is hilarious. Every detail. If I were one of those kids, I'd be freakin out!

Wow what a story...I agree the question should be "Who the heck were the guardians?" "why were these GUARDIANS not also charged for endangering these children?

The funniest thing about this story for me is the comments. The story itself is very real. This sort of stuff happens every day, typically in third world countries. Have none of you who have commented here ever traveled outside your own comfortable little world?? I don't laugh when I see or hear things like this because it is a pathetically sorry statement of humanity in general. If it was an isolated case it might be funny, but it's not. It's widespread and a symptom of the greed or irreverence or disrespect that we all suffer from. It just doesn't make sense to call this driver a schmuck or an idiot or whatever. He got caught. He is the focus of attention for a day in the MSN news. But there are a million violators every day. If you're really and truly affected by this sort of thing, then please... make a broader statement than giving one guy shit. Open your eyes and notice what's really going on in the world. The problem my friends is a lot bigger than this one incident.