ScanRide Helps You Filter Out Pirate Taxis

Horror taxi stories in the capital city have skyrocketed over the past few years. Students are getting robbed on their way home from school, women are overpowered by men in taxis, many fear for both their belongings and their lives.

It’s terrifying for anyone. Realising this problem, John Sylvanus John created a new app called ‘ScanRide’ which allows you to punch in a cab’s details before you get inside.

With it, you are able to see the registration number, reference number, the driver’s name, his contact details and address, as well as a safety rating on whether a cab is ‘faithful’ or not.

After testing it out for some time, the results were actually quite impressive: Out of 10 taxis that were ‘scanned’, eight were registered on the app and provided information. However, numbers not on the system could prove that either they have not been registered or that pirate taxis are roaming the city and taking your money.

The app is incredibly easy to use – all you have to do is register your number, add a few details about yourself and voila! You’re sorted. If you’re not feeling safe, you can share a screenshot of the cab’s particulars to a friend or someone you trust. Also, a photo of the vehicle is included, so they’d know exactly what kind of car you are getting into. If it doesn’t match – you can leave immediately.

The safety rating works as follows: Green means the cab is safe to use, orange means that there are still a few details missing, leaving it questionable. Red means the cab is dangerous and you should not enter it, but if you have to under certain circumstances, share the information about it to friends as soon as possible.

However, ScanRide is a bit odd to use when you’re in a hurry. The driver isn’t going to wait for you while you properly ensure he’s a safe bet, unless you’re in a cab that takes some time to leave because the driver wants to get more passengers. You can always leave if you’re not too happy with its safety rating.

Something that’ll be a bit uncomfortable as well is the driver knowing what kind of phone you have before you get in, seeing as you can only download the app with a smartphone. So maybe you’d want to hide your device or scan it where the driver can’t see it. The database of the registered cabs is still growing, so don’t expect all cabs to be on the system just yet. But so far, so good. Even the Windhoek City Police have given it their approval.

We do have a couple of suggestions, though: It will be good for users to rate a specific cab, the same way you would with an Uber service. A comments section will also do the app some justice, in case someone had a bad experience or get an idea of the kind of person the driver is. A database for searched results could also prove useful, in case someone loved their experience so much that they wanted to hire the driver as a personal cab, for example.

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