[WATCH] Limpopo authorities impound taxi carrying 58 kids
Traffic authorities are urging parents to ensure their children are transported to school safely after a video emerged social media showing 58 children squeezed in a mini-bus taxi.
The Limpopo Department of Transport and Community Safety's Joel Seabi confirmed that the taxi transporting the children was pulled over near Bela-Bela in Limpopo.
The driver was charged with overloading and the vehicle impounded.
"We do have a process where people apply to the department to have operating licenses to transport learners in the scholar transport category," says Seabi, but he urges parental involvement with their kids' transport.
"It is important to call on parents to ensure that vehicles that are utilised in transporting their own children to school are actually compliant with the laws of the republic and to ensure their kids are not just packed in some vehicle, overloaded, and their lives put at risk," says Seabi.
The Limpopo Department of Transport and Community Safety's Joel Seabi confirmed that the taxi transporting a total of 58 children children was pulled over near Bela Bela in Limpopo and that the driver was charged with overloading and his vehicle impounded. pic.twitter.com/UTySskqeqX
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Seabi adds that applicants have to go through a formal process to qualify to transport pupils to school under the scholar transport programme and that associations are formed in certain areas to coordinate transport services.
"We also call on such associations to work with us to ensure that whoever is operating in that space is compliant.”