Taxi Driver Online

11 pm. Approached 4 cabbies, asked if they would convey me to Chez Nous for a tenner.

Cab 1 - Central taxi. Where's that was the reply. I told him and he declined.

Cab 2 - Another Central taxi. Is that all you've got? How much is it? I told him didn't know. He declined the job.

To the taxi rank.

Cab 3 - A City cab. Again asked where it was. Estimated the job at £13 and declined.

Cab 4. A streetcar behind cab 3 on the rank. Hummed and hawed, but accepted the job. Metered the job anyway and it came to £9.70p.

So, Edinburgh must have been busy for these cabbies to turn down a tenner fare.

Had it been me I would have bitten the punter's hand off.

Anyway, wouldn't it appear from this that:-

* Some of Edinburgh's cabbies don't know where my domicile is and had to be directed. So much for the Knowledge test we pride ourselves on to make us diferent to PH.

* Some in the trade's ability to estimate a fare is poor. That's quite a feat for alleged "businessmen". And appalling given that customers have a right to negotiate a fare. Wanna bet that a call to a PH company would have generated a fixed fare offer?

* How can Edinburgh's taxi trade claim that trading conditions are poor when some in it are prepared to forego a tenner fare?

Doesn't our taxi trade desperately need to go back to the drawing board?

BTW There was a temptation to get a bus for £1.20. However the tracker screen indicated the next bus wasn't for another 20 minutes.

Says a man who works a 6 hour shift but pays for 12 hours then moans like hell when he's only took £60.00.

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Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

Believe me, don't get Mercury X2

Firstly, everything you say needs checking since you are a known liar.

You don't tell us whether the cabbies knew you or not. If I had been there I would have declined the fare too.

As for refusing a tenner fare, it just proves that we have principles and don't just pick up any ersehole like you.

What makes the whole story unbelievable is that you didn't rant and threaten to report them as you normally would. Perhaps the "dick to phone" wasn't with you? After all skull needs his beauty sleep, don't he?

Yeah, I smell [edited by admin] too!

Any job in town I always say to the customer that it's the metered price, that's what the meters for but if it's less than what is on the meter then the customer ls obviously quits in (or 30p this time)

Also

You asked to go to your destination for £10. You didnt ask (or appear to in your opening statement) the driver roughly how much it would be, just to broker a deal.
Usually if someone asks me how much it is and the customer replies they don't have enough I ask them what they have, if it's close to my estimate then I'll take them.
(ie last week Waverley to queen Margaret college) I said it would be approx £16-£18. The lad said be only had £18. So I told him ok if it's over £18 then I'll swallow the rest (taking into account the Musselburgh surcharge). Fare was £13.70 (through evening rushhour traffic) plus the surcharge took him to just under £17 and the boy said keep the change. Had he tried to haggle a fixed price down I'd say no but were all trying to work here
And thirdly

You asked 2 central and 1 city cab to take you and it was the street car that took you. Funny that you being a street car also. I'm sure if you jumped in and rattled off your address an not try to broker a deal thu wouldve taken you. Fair enough if they don't know your address like the back of their hand and need to ask what area it's in or what it's nearby. EVERY cabbie must have a job or 2 a week when they go "hmm, where's that again"

Fourthly

What you gonna do jim when Waverley closes? You don't work the streets and ranks at night (at least I've never seen you work them on a quiet week night) but seem to just ferry back n forth to the waverely

You think it's hard now, wait until you have to start really looking for work!

If you had said the nut house they would have taken you for free

A £3 surcharge to Musselburgh. Any wonder we get fewer Musselburgh jobs now. Any wonder we see so many East Lothian taxis in town picking up work to East Lothian that we used to do? Your greed and stupidity is killing our trade.

Any cabbie worth his salt would know where my destination is. The estate has only been around for 25 years.

And I haven't worked the Waverley for months. And 18 moths before that I hadn't worked it ever.

Let me give you an example. Last Thursday I spoke with a Waverley permitted taxi on the rank. He'd metered £60. I had already well exceeded that. I ended up witth the equivalent of a "poorish" Friday night on a Thursday. Hardly a six hour shift and hardly a street car struggling to find work without the Waverley, which is just shelling out money to sit on one of the biggest ranks in town.

You guys are unreal. Standards are falling. You businessmen illusionists couldn't negotiate on your best day and without the protection of the council you would go under.

That's the point of this. Until you're weaned off protectionism, and real quality controls are brought in to weed out the pretenders, we're never gonna have a quality taxi trade that we can sell at a premium price to our customers.

When are these quality controls coming are you not better trying to get them in place first

When you get off your buttt and hold those who represent you to account to get them.

Remember we're unelectable. You wouldn't want us to represent you so all we can do is highlight the flaws.

Until someone sits on the committees and truly represents the cabbies who actually do the graft in this trade, and feedback what is happening to inform the trade before it's a done deal and the grafters have been excluded, then you're gonna just have to put up with being trampled on, ignorant of what's being decided by others for you and the buttt end of those decisions which cost you.

Too difficult for you?

People better sit down, because its not often I say this.

I agree with jaspar

CC

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

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IDFIMH

It must be the chil he caught by having that skoda window open all the time
Or he has not taken the yellow smarties today

its not often you say anything of consequence,truth be told

You asked 3 out of 1,300 taxi's, sounds like or could be that you asked 3 New taxi drivers, unlikely but its a possibility

I'm happy haggling with punters, i usely over estimate (fixed fares) and take off what i think is reasonable, like longshanksed though if i think what i'm being offered is a fare price, then i turn the meter off and wear the difference, very seldom do i get it wrong, i think estimating comes with experiance, that makes me think you asked in-experianced Taxi Drivers

Here is the question: How many years would you consider to be a fully experianced Taxi Driver?

Passing the knowledge is one thing but the real knowledge is gained by working the streets,ranks etc

So how many years?

Answers by PM too Jasbar

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Alway's been about Tightening the Grip!

Why don't you ask cab 1. Peter 21.

hmmmm......truth.

CC

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin