Delta Coaches Not Road Worthy

I booked a Delta bus online via Bus Bud and my ticket was booked for the 19th of July 2022 departure at 18:00 at Park Station and arrival was supposed to be at 10:00 20th of July 2022 at Civic Centre in Cape Town.

I want to stress that this is one of the most crucial complains because it involves lives of people. Waited for the bus from 5:30pm as it is required to check in 15 minutes before your boarding time. Firstly we waited till 20:30 without any instructions as to why we are waiting and if maybe the bus we are meant to use to travel to Cape Town is delayed and perhaps be told how long the bus will be delayed so that we would be prepared mentally. I think the communication is bad and very poor because some things can be relayed to commuters, so that they can be in light of what is happening especially when they have arrived on time and they are waiting to commute to their destination. The instruction we got at 20:30 was that we should go outside to the bus terminal, which when we got there we waited for another 30 minutes until a bus came. The bus was very dirty from outside and it was unmarked, it was a white bus. The bus seats were dirty, the seats incline gears were broken, the charging ports were not working. The bus had people inside it already and there was a confusion for about 10 minutes inside the bus from passangers, arguing about seats and other stuff. The Marshalls did not bother themselves to intervene or control the situation. We also had other commuters getting into a fight and the marshall and bus drivers were not bothered.

The suspension of the bus was unstable, when ever we go on a ramp, hump or porthole the bus would shake and one could hear sounds on the wheels. Even when we drive on a normal road you can hear sounds on the wheels and you can feel something shaking on your seat. We almost got to an accident when the bus brake and we all could feel and see the back of the bus moving towards the right when it brake. At that moment other people started noticing that the bus was not ok especially the suspension.

When one hears stories of people dying in bus crashes, there are a lot of questions we ask ourselves but when there are buses that travel long distances without inspections on the road by traffic officers and I'm guessing there are not officials from the department of transport that come to inspect these buses subsequent to them operating without fear of being in trouble with the law. Luckily as we left Beaufort West a metro police car drove passed us and the officers were going towards a different direction but because of the technology installed in their vehicle the camera took a picture of the bus and the report it gave them was that the bus was not road worthy and they immediately made a u turn and rushed to our bus and stopped us. They took us to the testing station, the bus failed the road worthy test and the traffic officers impounded the bus and took us to the impounding station. There they explained to us that the bus we were using was not supposed to be on the road because it was banned from being on the road. So technically the bus was illegally operating without the permission and the drivers were fully aware of this because they were not surprised and they did not even want to call the owner of the bus. The bus drivers also refused to give the officers the contacts of the owners.

So we had to wait again without any formal instructions as to where the next bus will come from and take us to our destination. After waiting for 10 hours at the bus station some decided to get a taxi to take them to Cape Town and I waited thinking help will come soon but I had to go hike. Also hiking was my last resort because I had already missed my appointment at Cape Town so I had to reschedule and I couldn't wait for another bus that I did not know when it was going to arrive because the communication was terrible.

I am very disappointed at the agency Delta and the agency Bus Bud for not making sure that the buses we use are fully inspected and are road worthy. Please change your attitude towards this because these are peoples lives we are talking about, please treat this situation as it was you or your loved ones in it.