The 14 pupils who died in a horrific crash in Vereeniging on 19 January 2026 did not die because of bad luck. They died because South Africa’s transport system is broken, and because government leadership continues to treat systemic failure as an unfortunate coincidence, rather than what it truly is – a collapse in governance, moral courage and political will.
We have been here before. Far too many times. And unless something fundamental changes, we will be here again.
Every time a scholar transport vehicle, minibus taxi or bus is involved in a multi-fatality crash, the same ritual follows. Investigations are announced. Condolences are extended. Promises are made that “lessons will be learned”. Politicians attend funerals, cameras roll, and within weeks the dust settles, the headlines move on, and the system that killed those children carries on unchanged.
This is not an accident problem. It is a multi-layered, systemic failure of governance, and one that is largely preventable.
A transport ecosystem built on neglect
SA’s roads are saturated with vehicles that would never have passed a proper roadworthy test, driven by people who should never have been licensed, and operating in an environment where enforcement is inconsistent, selective and often corrupt.
Unlicensed or fraudulently issued driving licences pervade our road use environment. Public driving permits are often bought, rather than earned. Roadworthy certificates are corruptly or incompetently signed off without inspections. Law enforcement officers who look the other way, or worse, actively participate in the rot.
None of this is new. What is new is the growing body count.
Corruption in driver licensing, vehicle testing and traffic policing is no longer anecdotal. It is structural. When rules exist only on paper, compliance becomes optional and accountability disappears. The outcome is predictable. Every day, somewhere in South Africa, too many unsafe vehicles are transporting the most vulnerable members of society. Children. Low-income workers. These are people with no alternative means of transport.
The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse’s (Outa’s) research into fraud and corruption at vehicle testing stations revealed a system in profound decay. These findings were formally raised with the Department of Transport. The response? Silence.
No engagement. No urgency. No reform.
This is not ignorance. It is state-sanctioned negligence.
The taxi industry: essential, yet conveniently abandoned
Nowhere is this dysfunction more visible than in the minibus taxi sector industry, and in saying so I don’t believe the taxi industry is necessarily the villain of this story.
Minibus taxis play an indispensable role in SA’s economy and daily life. The industry exists because over the past few decades our national, provincial and local governments have failed to develop reliable, safe and accessible public transport systems.
However, the industry remains largely informal, poorly regulated, unevenly licensed and inconsistently enforced. Tax compliance is virtually non-existent. Vehicle standards vary wildly. Driver conduct is frequently reckless and unlawful. Oversight is reactive, not preventive.
The government’s response has been one that can only be described in two words: fear and avoidance. Successive transport ministers have treated the taxi industry as politically untouchable. Regulation is delayed. Enforcement is diluted. Plans to professionalise the sector are endlessly postponed.
The result is an uneasy truce between the state and an industry that transports millions of passengers daily, yet operates outside the standards expected of other public transport providers and ordinary road users.
That reluctance to govern has consequences. Deadly ones.
Rules without enforcement are meaningless
Functioning transport systems require clear rules, consistent enforcement and real consequences. SA’s transport environment has none of these in sufficient measure.
Traffic enforcement is under-trained, under-managed and under-resourced. Roadblocks often focus on paperwork or revenue generation rather than vehicle safety and driver fitness. Repeat offenders remain on the road. Corruption hollows out what little deterrence remains.
Into this dysfunction steps Aarto (the government’s demerits points system), endlessly marketed as the silver bullet for road safety. In reality, it is an overly complex system that relies on accurate registries, functioning postal services, administrative capacity, consistent enforcement and public buy-in, most of which do not exist.
After nearly two decades of delays and failures, the problem is no longer implementation. It is a leadership issue, and a reluctance to engage with civil society and obtain its input on concerns and solutions.
Worse still, the government continues to develop new laws that are disconnected from enforcement reality. The proposed zero-percent alcohol limit is a classic example. No one is advocating for drinking and driving, but a 0.05% blood alcohol limit is internationally accepted as very safe for driving. And countries with these limits – and even higher levels, up to 0.08% – have some of the lowest road fatality statistics. If authorities cannot enforce 0.05%, this challenge will live on with a 0% limit. Laws that cannot be enforced are not solutions. They are distractions.
Accountability cannot be outsourced
National leadership means setting minimum standards, building robust systems, and enforcing them relentlessly. The Department of Transport cannot continue outsourcing accountability to provinces and municipalities while fully aware of their capacity constraints, political interference and competing agendas.
Public transport drivers must be professionally trained and properly licensed. Loopholes that allow fraudulent licences must be closed, and the perpetrators prosecuted. Public transport vehicles must meet clear safety standards, with independent and robust auditing and verification.
Too often, blame is placed solely on drivers, many of whom are underpaid, overworked and pressured to meet impossible targets. In many cases, the real culprits are operators and vehicle owners who force drivers to operate unroadworthy vehicles, speed excessively, and break the law to maximise profits. That reality is routinely ignored.
The cost of doing nothing
When systems fail, the poor pay first, and they pay with their lives. Every morning, parents entrust the state with their children’s safety when they put them into scholar transport and minibus vehicles. That trust is being violated repeatedly. Each fatal crash erodes confidence not only in transport systems, but in governance itself.
This is how institutional decay unfolds. Not in one dramatic collapse, but through a steady accumulation of preventable deaths.
The tragedy is not that the problem is complex. The tragedy is that the solutions are known and ignored.
A call for courage, not sympathy
What is needed is not another task team or temporary enforcement blitz. It is a decisive shift toward professionalising public transport, including the taxi industry, through meaningful cooperation with civil society and industry stakeholders.
That requires confronting corruption head on. It requires insisting on transparency, accountability and the political will to challenge powerful interests that benefit from systemic weakness. These are often the same corruption networks that enjoy protection from people in high places, which is a serious and significant factor that fuels the lack of political will.
Leadership in this context is not about avoiding conflict. It is about preventing funerals. Until the government understands this, these 14 children will not be the last. They will simply be the latest.
And the next time multiple lives are lost on our roads, no one in authority should dare call it an accident. DM
Wayne Duvenage is a businessman and entrepreneur turned civil activist. Following former positions as CEO of Avis and President of SA Vehicle Renting and Leasing Association, Duvenage has headed the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse since its inception in 2012.