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Abuse in public transport

There is an old form of violence in our midst solidified by both passengers and public transport operators; a violence whose spark is continuously fed as early as sunrise and does not die out way too long into the night. Self-inflicted violence on wheels sustained by the urgency to hop from one place to another in the shortest time possible! This form of violence against children and women is perpetuated from the northern tip of Malawi and cuts through the centre unto the southern apex.

I recently travelled between Blantyre and Lilongwe twice and what I saw left me baffled at the way we court disaster travelling in the public transport system

On one of the four journeys, I sat a few seats behind the driver. Wenela bus Station vomited an overloaded bus and let it go, not really caring whether her ‘overfed baby’ would reach its destination. To say this Wenela baby was bursting at the seams is an understatement. It was, figuratively, showing the innards as well. Have you ever seen the inside of a fully crammed bus? You should have seen this one.

A written notice from the manufacturer stated that the bus carries 66 seated passengers, 25 standing and that it is also charged with the duty of carrying a maximum load of 430 kilogrammes. But the load for this trip was very extraordinary. Like carelessly stack wood, passengers huddled right away from the first step all the way to the rear. Some sat above the oval shaped engine enclosure outside the driver’s cubicle. Others stood dangerously without any support a few steps from the hand rail.

Two unmistakably pregnant women sat next to each other outside the driver’s enclosure clearly putting themselves in harm’s way in the event of sudden braking. Almost 10 children stood in the aisle. Daring things passengers do when they are late, audacious means public operators resort to when they want to make quick bucks. In any case, both the passenger and the public transporter believe that the end justifies the means. Then there are road traffic regulators who share the spoils at the expense of passengers’ safety!

It was obvious that on this particular trip, the engine was tasked with the enormous responsibility of pulling through the ascents of Dedza with such a heavy load, a feat which could even have numbed the manufacturers. The sound of wailing children, grumbling passengers whose feet had been stepped on the wrong way filled the bus. Startling! And what more? As if safety had not been fully compromised, a steel chair was tied to the luggage compartment above passengers’ heads behind the driver’s cubicle.

A police check at Zalewa road block did not detect anything wrong. Few minutes later, road traffic staff and the police stopped the bus at the Mwanza intersection. But even the dreaded road traffic officers were of no help in as far as road safety is concerned. The driver was ordered to ensure that all standing passengers have access to the hand rail.

An impossible feat! This meant shoving and pushing all passengers crammed in between the steps and where the hand rail begins. We spent over half an hour for the passengers to painfully stand stock-still like stacked wood along the aisle.

The passengers sitting next to the driver were back in their slots as soon as the bus started off. Whether the driver paid a fee for overloading, I cannot tell. But hey! How do you expect a 10-year-old child to stand for a four-hour journey from Blantyre to Lilongwe? It may be argued that pregnant women who consider cramming themselves on such long routes have themselves to blame. But how about the hapless and helpless children who cannot make concrete decisions on their own?

 

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