Casablanca’s green line
Thursday, February 1st, 2007
How do you tell a legitimate taxi from an illegal one? Three months from now, that shouldn’t be a problem anymore in Casablanca.
Drivers of grands taxis in Casablanca are furious. They have been given another 90 days by the local authorities to paint a green stripe on their cars. This should make it easier to identify taxis from other cities who aren’t supposed to pick up passengers in Casablanca, as well as the khattafa, the local touts.
Casablanca’s cabbies are not impressed. “I don’t think that a green stripe is going to stop the illegal taxis,” one skeptic tells newspaper Le Matin.
What really upsets the drivers is that they have to pay for the paint job themselves, and that if they don’t comply they may lose their license.
The authorities should punish the khattafa, taxi drivers say, not the hard working honest guys who simply can’t afford the paint for this green stripe.
Passengers, meanwhile, have other concerns. “The color of a taxi is the least of our worries,” Le Matin quotes one. The poor state of the old Mercedeses, the taxi drivers’ liberal approach to speed limits and the way they treat their passengers are more pressing issues, he adds.
The stripe is part of a program to improve the taxi services. The old model Mercedeses (average age 21 years) should gradually disappear from the streets, making way for brand new Renaults Kangoo. Licenses will be tougher to get and easier to lose, while new technologies will be introduced to enforce rules and regulations.
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