Scoot This

Maybe I'm just cranky. 

If you didn't like this post, then bad news for you, you're not going to like this one as it's a continuation of the same rant. I think I've discovered something more annoying and disruptive than bounce houses. There is a scooter epidemic in Geneva. These two wheeled contraptions are choking the streets, sidewalks and parks and let's just say I'm not a fan.

In Joburg everyone likes to complain endlessly about the mini bus taxis. Taxi drivers wreak havoc on the streets breaking every traffic law within a five minute time period. If you are driving and you see a taxi you must assume the driver is going to cut across three lanes of traffic and then stop without warning. The difference between the taxis and these scooters is that at least taxis serve an important purpose. Without the taxis, millions of people would have no transportation and the South African economy would collapse. Scooters however serve absolutely no purpose, they are simply a toy and a most annoying one at that.

Since I'm not sure if the scooter scourge is a worldwide issue or not, let me show you a photo of the type of scooter I'm referring to. 

I haven't taken a formal survey, but my informal research tells me that every child in Geneva owns one of these. 

When faced with a puzzling mystery, one first must ask why. So I have asked myself why do kids (I won't even get started on adults) need scooters? Some quick research on Google indicates that humans have been walking upright for 1.9 million years. Why the sudden need to scoot? Is it that parents think their kids don't walk fast enough? Is it just a phase or a craze? I can't come up with an answer that satisfies. 

Don't think that these scooters are just for older kids either. Yesterday in the park I saw a kid with a pacifier in his mouth riding a scooter. Surely if you are still using a pacifier you don't need your own set of wheels. Your first order of business should be weaning yourself off sucking a plastic nipple when you go out in public. I also saw a parent pushing an empty stroller while the kid scooted up ahead. This situation says just one thing, this parent doesn't want his kid to have to walk, he can either be pushed or he can scoot but walking is frowned upon. 

There is a reason that kids don't drive cars and can't get licenses until they are older. It's because they can't steer. I can't tell you how many times I've been running in the park only to have a near miss collision with a four year old scooting uncontrollably. The parents don't even seem to notice that I've had to jump off the path and into a shrub to save myself from being taken out by their kid. The parents are too busy smoking and chatting away on their cell phones to concern themselves with my safety.

I sometimes like to play a little game of chicken with these scooting kids as I run. I will run toward them and not get out of the way until the last possible minute. While it may seem mean I am trying to teach them an important life lesson which is sometimes you need to %$&!%^ing move. 

But I know the real reason these scooters bother me so much and it's not because I am almost maimed daily or am simply mean. It's because I'm still dealing with culture shock having moved to fancy pants Geneva from South Africa. While there are plenty of wealthy kids living a plush (and bouncing castle filled) life in South Africa there were also a lot of kids who didn't own any toys. Anyone who has visited a township like Diepsloot or Soweto has seen kids playing outside using rocks, string and trash as makeshift toys. Once you've seen that, you don't forget that image easily.

One day Mr. Deep and I witnessed a temper tantrum which took place outside our apartment. A child and his mother were standing on the street corner and clearly the kid was having a meltdown. He threw his scooter into the street while screaming. The mother, calmly bent down and retrieved it. 

Had I been that parent, that moment would have been the last time that child ever touched that scooter. That scooter would have been boxed up and on it's way to Africa before that kid could ask "has anyone seen my scooter?" It would have been on its way to a needy and appreciative child who could ride it the 5km each way that he has to walk to and from school each day. 

Maybe I'm just cranky. 

A Necessary Evil

Spend five minutes in South Africa and you will become acquainted with the infamous mini bus taxis. These taxis are omnipresent in the same way yellow cabs cover New York City streets. 

Part bus and part taxi, people hale them down like cabs but like buses as they have designated routes and are packed to the max with riders. 


So what's the story with the mini bus taxis? During apartheid, black people were evicted from their homes and forced to live in townships. Townships were generally built on the outskirts of major towns and cities leaving the cities for white people only. As recently as 2007, statistics showed that 55% of black adults still lived in townships. Add to this the statistic that 50% of South Africans don't own cars as even modest cars are very expensive here. On a side note, from my own very non scientific research and observation it seems like the 50% of people that do own cars own very expensive and fancy cars (Deep family excluded) but these are blog post topics for another day.  Anyway, if many people don't have cars, and if they live on the edge of the cities and major towns and if there is no public transportation people can use to get to to work (or to get anywhere) then this all adds up to the need for the mini bus taxis.

The mini bus taxis all look the same but supposedly have details written on the back explaining their routes. I was told that there is a whole hand gesture code that riders use to flag down mini bus taxis. Say a person stands on the side of the road and points his index finger up, that might mean he wants to go north. I'm not saying that is what it means but it's something like that. It appears that there are certain areas where people congregate and wait for a mini bus taxi but it also seems that the mini buses will stop anywhere they want to such as right in the middle of the road to drop off or pick up passengers.

When we were staying in Sunninghill and now here at home in the afternoon I hear a lot of car honking coming from the street outside of our neighborhood (here they call it hooting and you will see signs that say no hooting.) The hooting is the mini bus taxis letting the maids, gardeners and others working in the residential area know their transportation is nearby.

The mini bus taxis are a constant topic of complaint. The griping is not without merit as the taxis drive dangerously and don't follow the rules of the road. Taxis will cut you off, run red lights and stop signs, stop in the middle of moving traffic, pass you on the wrong side, drive on the shoulder or grass and more. They pretty much do whatever they want to. I read an article that said that mini bus taxis are exempt from the laws because they are so necessary to the economy. Kind of the way a fire truck can do whatever it needs to do to get to a fire quickly. I asked about this and was told that it's not true and that mini bus taxis are supposed to obey traffic laws but they don't. 

The mini bus taxis help explain the large number of pedestrians that I've mentioned before. These are people waiting for their taxi, walking from where the taxi dropped them off or walking to get a taxi. Also, it explains the hooting which at first I thought was odd in a quiet suburban neighborhood at 3:00 in the afternoon.