If you drive in South Africa, you have met our minibus taxis and their general disregard for traffic regulations. I admit that they provide a service that should, in all honesty, be provided by government, but thankfully isn't. (Imagine what several layers of government red tape and inefficiency will do - it will make taxis prohibitively expensive and late, as well as running on routes no-one needs).
As such, they do deserve certain concessions: so what if they use the emergency lane - they generally travel fast enough not to impede any actual emergency vehicles, and should they brake down, they are already in the correct place.
However, skipping red robots (traffic lights for the international readers) and stop streets, or using unroadworthy vehicles should not be acceptable. Issuing them with a ticket does not help, as they (mostly) just ignore it. What is needed is a new way of punishing them that they cannot ignore - make them wait.
If a taxi is found to be unroadworthy, pull them over and let them wait for an hour before allowing them to continue (empty). Skipping a red robot (traffic light) should get them another hour's delay, etc.
Why is this effective? Well, paying passengers would get upset at the delay, and simply get out, and take another taxi, resulting in lost revenues. Similarly, the time that the taxi is not on the road also costs both the owner and the driver more than what it would cost to comply with the rules of the road (slightly slower passenger turnover).
Bribing the traffic cop to avoid the delay would be just another form of on-the-spot fine, and would still achieve the road safety aim, in that it becomes less costly to comply with the rules than to break them.
The only possible loser would be the local authority, through a slightly smaller revenue collection, but with a vastly increased road safety benefit.
I guess that means no chance of it ever getting implemented...
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