Anyone who lives in South Africa, and especially those of us who live in the “big cities” have at some time or another had a run in with the local minibus taxi drivers. Now you can take out your frustrations on the taxi’s and there drivers in this online game. Found via this story on IOL.

For those of you who are fortunate enough to have never had a run in with the local taxi’s, which means you’ve either never left your house or you don’t live in South Africa. Let me give you a brief explanation of why they are so hated. The vehicle of choice for the local taxi industry is the Toyota Hi-Ace, road worthiness is not really important as long as the taxi is capable of taking passengers and moving forward it is considered to be ok to drive. It’s not uncommon to find taxi’s without doors, brakes or even steering wheels. A taxi was once impounded (a very rare event) that had no steering wheel, in its place it had a vice grip clamped to the steering column. The only thing that taxi drivers worry about is getting their passengers to their destination, if they arrive in one piece it’s considered a bonus. This of course means that things like ‘rules of the road’ are something that just gets in the way of their mission. I’m not sure of the exact statistics but I’m pretty sure that more than 50% of accidents on our roads a taxi is some how involved in.

Local law enforcement can’t really do much about the taxi’s, the local cops are out numbered, the taxi operators are generally better armed and because there is no real alternative to the taxi’s they’re needed and there for protected ‘by the people’.