staffrider, noun
- Origin:
- Probably referring to the pole (or ‘staff’) in the doorway of a railway carriage, to which those who board a train at the last minute must cling if (as often) there is insufficient room in the carriage for them to go inside; see also quotation 1962 at staffride.
slang
1. Especially in township English: one who rides (a suburban train) without paying, often hanging onto the outside of a coach or riding on the roof. See also staff.
1977 P.C. Venter Soweto 81Clinging to the side of a fast train is dangerous — but not dangerous enough for some of the ‘staff riders’. There are those who prefer to travel on the roof of a train...The mortality rate of so-called staff riders is high.
1989 in Weekly Mail 13 Oct. 9‘I am not a staffrider, but I became one that night’...Kukeba later struggled to convince the policemen at the station that he was escaping from thugs.
2. figurative. A ‘chancer’; a daredevil.
1980 N. Motana in Staffrider Vol.3 No.1, 14He sheds a handful of lovers. He finds them to be either superficial or immature. ‘Parasites and staff-riders!’ he thinks aloud.
1980 M. Kirkwood in Eng. in Afr. Vol.7 No.2, 23A suitable title for the magazine...Somebody..had suggested the word ‘staffrider’...It incorporated the notion of a daredevil, somebody who would go a little bit further than most.
one who rides (a suburban train) without paying, often hanging onto the outside of a coach or riding on the roof.
A ‘chancer’; a daredevil.
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