Cape Argus (Cape Town)
Maureen Marud
20 March 2003
Golden Arrow buses have raised the hackles of the South African Guide-Dogs Association for the Blind by parking on a zebra crossing in Adderley Street.
"We have the monumental task of helping blind pedestrians to cross streets safely and independently, and it is totally unacceptable for buses to jeopardise the protection zebra crossings are meant to provide," says Ken Lord, executive director of the association.
Golden Arrow has apologised, promising to take disciplinary action and "to do everything we can to avoid a similar incident in the future".
The apology is in response to a complaint from guide-dog owner Morné Visser, who said his route to work from the station was blocked twice in a month by Golden Arrow buses straddling a zebra crossing in Adderley Street.
On the second occasion the bus parked on the crossing had no driver - this occurred only weeks after Golden Arrow had apologised to him when a driver had refused to move the bus off the same crossing because taxis were blocking the space where he was supposed to stop.
Visser said the driver had sworn at him when he asked him to move the bus as his guide dog's training prevented the animal from walking around anything blocking the striped area of the zebra crossing.
Luneda Marx, who told Argus Action she was walking with Visser on the morning in question, said the bus was idling on the zebra crossing, and the speed of the traffic in Adderley Street had made it too dangerous to walk around the bus.
When she asked the driver to move the bus either forward or backwards off the crossing, he had sworn at her while he continued to hoot at taxis in front of the bus stop.
"I asked him if he had considered that Morné might be knocked down and killed because the bus was in the way, but he said it had nothing to do with him. All he was interested in was the people blocking his parking space."
She said the driver had also sworn at Visser.
"The driver not only shouted abuse at him, but he also told Morné he hoped he would become even blinder.
"Things were getting really ugly, so we decided to leave. I had to struggle to get Morné across the street because the guide dog was reluctant to move."
Guide dogs are trained to follow a carefully-plotted route, said Lord.
Blind people using guide dogs were forbidden to cross a street in the middle of a block. The only exception to that rule was when they used zebra crossings, which were always in the middle of the block, never at corners.
"Our dogs are taught to find the zebra stripes on the road. The blind person will tell the dog to find the crossing, and the animal knows roughly that the stripes are usually in the middle of the block, so it will take him to the zebra crossing."
If something was blocking the zebra stripes, the dog would disobey the command to cross the street because it was trained not to leave the striped area, and so would not walk around whatever was in the way.
Apart from it being illegal to park on a zebra crossing, because it endangered the lives of pedestrians, it also made life much more difficult for people with guide dogs, said Lord.
The challenge for them to walk safely was growing as traffic increased.
"We celebrate our golden jubilee this year, and are proud to say that in 50 years we have never had a guide dog or its owner seriously injured crossing a street."
Lord said any bus parked on a zebra crossing should be towed away.
"Otherwise Golden Arrow must be taken to court. If a pedestrian is killed or injured because a bus is on a zebra crossing, the fault is totally with the driver."
Visser said he wanted Golden Arrow to force buses to leave zebra crossings free for pedestrians.
"It is no use apologising to me for one incident, and then not instructing bus drivers to obey the law concerning zebra crossings," he said.
Krause thanked Visser for reporting the incidents, and said the fact that Visser had someone with him to provide the bus numbers helped Golden Arrow to deal with the drivers responsible.
"We have nearly 1 000 drivers out there on their own and we don't know what they do until people tell us."
In its driver training the company was careful to impress on drivers the importance of customer care off buses as well as on them.
"We try to persuade them to cause as little inconvenience as possible to other road users. We can't control what actually happens on the road in a day-to-day situation. The only way we have of dealing with that is when people let us know.
"We have apologised and we want to apologise again to Mr Visser for the inconvenience caused," said Krause.
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