article from IOL News
By Barbara Cole, Mpume Madlala and Sapa
Under-fire bus company SA Roadlink halted ticket sales at its Durban offices this morning despite Wednesday's "business as usual" response to the transport MEC's plan to ban them from KwaZulu-Natal roads.
Staff at the company's offices at Durban station said they would only sell tickets that could be redeemed for travel on Thursday.
When approached for comment on tickets not being sold for trips out of the city on Friday, SA Roadlink risk manager Herman Steyn said he was not aware of this development.
The ban has been slapped on SA Roadlink from midnight tomorrow in the wake of a horror road accident in Hibberdene on Tuesday which killed 11 people, including six members of one family.
Sapa identified the occupants of the bus who died as: Komrad Brookes, Steven Brookes, 6, Nonkululo Talatala, LA Ndebele and a woman, whose details have yet to be released.
Issues have also been raised concerning the safety of buses.
It emerged during a briefing by Hibiscus Coast Protection Services head Victor Chetty that a great portion of the body of the bus was made of fibreglass and did not have any reinforcing such as roll bars.
Cele, who was at the briefing, told Sapa that: "We will have to raise our concerns with SABS and the (National) Department of Transport.
"Maybe, like the taxi industry, the time has come to recap buses."
The KZN ban has had a domino effect with Western Cape traffic authorities carrying out random inspections on all long distance buses.
Merle Lourens of the Cape Town's traffic services said the withdrawal by the KZN provincial traffic authorities of the operating licence of the SA Roadlink bus company after several recent fatal crashes, was a valuable lesson to traffic police around the country.
Steyn said last night that although the media had told him that MEC Bheki Cele had announced that SA Roadlink's permits would be revoked from midnight tomorrow, the company knew nothing about it.
"A permit is not something you obtain from the shelf. There are certain legal processes. It is also not possible to just stop it or withdraw it by word of mouth," said Steyn.
"Our legal people have sent letters to the MEC's office. We are calling for a meeting and we are pretty confident that we will resolve this in the next day or two."
Steyn said SA Roadlink had hired a team of independent forensic experts to investigate the cause of the crash. "There were three vehicles involved, and the cause of the accident has not yet been established," he said.
Safety remained a high priority, especially during the busy holiday period, Steyn said, and the entire fleet had undergone voluntary roadworthy tests at government vehicle testing stations in preparation for the peak holiday season.
Other safety measures included buying six new vehicles for the festive season. And before any trip was undertaken, "all business undergo preventative maintenance checks and brake testing," at state-of-the-art workshops.
Meanwhile, the National Department of Transport announced last night that following recent crashes involving SA Roadlink, it had instructed the Road Management Corporation to launch an investigation.
Crashes involving the company's buses had increased "resulting in the loss of innocent lives and injury to many people. The Department is very concerned about this situation."
Cele told a press conference yesterday that Roadlink's suspension would remain in place until the outcome of an urgent investigation into whether the company's operation was "conducive for safe public transport".
Cele said that SA Roadlink was the "most troublesome" bus operator in the province and told how representatives maintained there were no problems, saying that it had the biggest fleet in the country.
"What does that matter when so many people are dying," Cele said.
As far as he was concerned, "the company's attitude stinks".
In response, Steyn said that he had been told of the allegations, but he did not want to respond to them in the media. "We want to talk to him directly and sort it out," he said.
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