Today, while watching the tamil movie Mandela, I came across a vehicle – “maxi cab”. I don’t see these vehicles much these days in Karnataka. They were however very famous decades ago.
I remember these maxi cabs plying on roads and taking people from one village to another or one city to another. Their capacity was around 30-40 seats. But you could squeeze more people into it. These vehicles were famous among the rural and semi urban people. People used it to attend festivals and marriages.
This is the order: We had big buses. Then mini buses. Then came the Maxi cabs. Maxi cabs were not as costly as mini buses. They were smaller than the mini buses and hence cost less. But you could squeeze too many people and this made it famous. Even the fare for traveling in these vehicles was less than mini buses. The problem with maxi cabs was that when they were crowded and they moved fast, they could easily topple on curved roads. They would topple even when they tried to overtake another vehicle while travelling with a speed more than 50kmph! I remember reading so many newspaper reports of maxi cab accidents. So many accidents, that there was pressure on the government to even ban these vehicles from roads!
I remember a distant relative used to own one maxi cab and it met with an accident killing some 10-15 people. Police had asked him to compensate for the victims. And later we came to know that the insurance was also lapsed. However, he had sold the vehicle to another party a week before the accident.
Now I do not see these maxi cabs on roads in Karnataka. But seeing it in a tamil movie made me think if some of these old models are still used in some places.
