The Taxi Industry and how ridiculous it has gotten, a drivers view..

Ham'nd'egger · 31-01-2008 3:13am #1

Tuesday evening, I was coming home from town with a friend and walking down Dame Street about 12:30AM, I saw about the darndest sight ever in my 3 years of taxi driving.

There was 4 punters at a taxi rank in Dame Street (The rank outside of Citibar) and they were waving down a taxi which was the opposite side of the road (Outside Mercantile Bar). No bother, you say, they want to get home and into bed so away they go. Thing was, they were at a taxi rank when they did this AND THERE WAS TAXI'S AT THE RANK! Now, before anybody asks anything, yes it was 4 of them so it wasn't a case of get a 6 seater car. I did notice that the 3 cars at the top of the rank were driven by "non Irish" drivers.

Now the reason I wish to bring this up are as follows....

1) Has it come to the stage where passengers are feeling that they need to pick the car they travel in, based on the skin of a driver?
2) Has it come to it that the relevance of a Taxi Rank is watered down that bad that punters can not only pick and choose their car that they can disregard the rank if they wish to?
3) Are taxi drivers in Dublin that bad that passengers have to resort to this, and if so, how often is it happening?

I don't wish for this thread to become a stick to beat taxi drivers, nor do I want it to become a race issue. However, is the public's perception and expectations that bad that people avoid taxi's by merely looking at the driver's skin or has the trade become that bad a joke that it is the norm to do as such, and if so why?

Dub13 · 31-01-2008 3:18am

You could be jumping to conclusions,maybe they were very drunk and did not realize they were standing beside a rank.

maxheadroom · 31-01-2008 8:45am

Isn't it cheaper to hail on the street than to get a taxi from the rank?

Wishbone Ash · 31-01-2008 8:59am

maxheadroom wrote: »

Isn't it cheaper to hail on the street than to get a taxi from the rank?

No.

OP - there was a long thread about this very topic a few months ago.

paulm17781 · 31-01-2008 10:00am

I do the opposite and hope for a taxi with a non-Irish driver. They are far less likely to insist on talking and boring you to death with "facts" than the Irish ones are.

Ste.phen · 31-01-2008 10:26am

Really? I thought there was a 1 or 1.50 extra for picking up at a rank?

Wishbone Ash · 31-01-2008 10:36am

Igy wrote: »

Really? I thought there was a 1 or 1.50 extra for picking up at a rank?

Booking charge

When a taxi is booked by telephone, email, fax, text, (or any method other than by hailing in the street or engaging at a taxi rank), taxi drivers will be permitted to charge a maximum of €2.00 for such journeys. This charge will not apply to taxis hailed on the street or engaged at taxi ranks or at transport terminals.

Mylow · 31-01-2008 10:44am

paulm17781 wrote: »

I do the opposite and hope for a taxi with a non-Irish driver. They are far less likely to insist on talking and boring you to death with "facts" than the Irish ones are.

Also find the non-national taxi drivers keep their cars much better. Would you pick an wrinkly bit of fruit over fresh piece in Supermarket? Same price different quality. I tend to use 2 same taxi's locally, one is Irish other is Romanian, both very reliable cars are always clean.

I really think they should standardise taxi's like they do in Germany, lose the VRT for registered taxi's.

paulm17781 · 31-01-2008 10:57am

Mylow wrote: »

Also find the non-national taxi drivers keep their cars much better. Would you pick an wrinkly bit of fruit over fresh piece in Supermarket? Same price different quality. I tend to use 2 same taxi's locally, one is Irish other is Romanian, both very reliable cars are always clean.

I really think they should standardise taxi's like they do in Germany, lose the VRT for registered taxi's.

Couldn't agree more. Some standards need to be introduced, standardized cars for one, minimum of football stickers, radio speakers in the front (there is nothing worse than a driver turning up the radio as his passengers are talking over it) and a cleanliness standard.

Cookie_Monster · 31-01-2008 11:01am

What were the cars in the rank? Were they all 10 year old clapped out improted rubbish?

Just a possability as to why they chose to get another car, I know there are some taxi's I wouldn't go near. If there are 3 taxi's parked up and the first two are 96 corollas and the third a 07 e-class (or any similar combination)which would you go for?

2qk4u · 31-01-2008 11:13am

There are standards there allready.The taxi should be clean when you get in.If is not there is a complaints procedure.A lot of the things that people moan about in Taxis can be adressed by contacting the Taxi Regulators office.How many of you have noticed problems or see something that needs inproving ? Well its you that can change them.Some Taxi drivers will do what they like because nobody does anything about it,if you dont like it do something about it..

I have noticed many taxi customers being choosy,Its happened to me plenty of times.People refusing to get in the first car on a rank because the driver looks foreign.Or waiting to see a driver that looks Irish before sticking their hand out. There is nothing that suprises me any more with the taxi industry.

Mylow · 31-01-2008 11:31am

2qk4u wrote: »

There are standards there allready.The taxi should be clean when you get in.If is not there is a complaints procedure.A lot of the things that people moan about in Taxis can be adressed by contacting the Taxi Regulators office.How many of you have noticed problems or see something that needs inproving ? Well its you that can change them.Some Taxi drivers will do what they like because nobody does anything about it,if you dont like it do something about it..

I have noticed many taxi customers being choosy,Its happened to me plenty of times.People refusing to get in the first car on a rank because the driver looks foreign.Or waiting to see a driver that looks Irish before sticking their hand out. There is nothing that suprises me any more with the taxi industry.

Why bother contacting regulator, as a consumer I make the choice. If the taxi is dirty or clapped out piece of rubbish I wont use it, If everyone else adopted same attitude we wouldn't have these crap taxi's. You don't honestly expect taxi regulator to follow up calls for dirty taxi's, they would never get anything else done.

I really hate when people use the race card, I have never opted out of using a non-national driver. I don't know anyone who has, what p*sses me off is when Irish taxi drivers moan about non-national taxi drivers. The only people I hear complaining about non-national drivers are Irish taxi drivers.

bill_ashmount · 31-01-2008 11:38am

This was done before in another thread a while back, but I know a lot of people who want an Irish taxi driver. As long as they are not skipping the queue they are perfectly entitled to wave one down. People have the right to choose. And yes a lot of it is down to skin colour.

I couldn't care less, i just want to get home, in fact i'd rather have a non Irish driver a lot of the time because they tend to talk less

MrPudding · 31-01-2008 11:41am

+1

MrP

Gavin · 31-01-2008 12:09pm

I was getting a taxi home from the airport, coming in from the middle east. I was describing the place/customs to the taxi driver and he told me a story from when he was waiting at the airport once.

Three middle eastern people (identified by Abayas and Thobes) emerged from the airport, looking for a taxi. The taxi at the top of the queue was driven by a female. The middle eastern people refused to get into a taxi with a female driver. In response, non of the other taxi drivers in the rank would take them. They left, without getting a taxi.

It's a shame such solidarity is not offered to non-national drivers.

Zynks · 31-01-2008 12:11pm

Mylow wrote: »

...If the taxi is dirty or clapped out piece of rubbish I wont use it, If everyone else adopted same attitude we wouldn't have these crap taxi's.

Absolutely! I choose "my" taxi also. Some taxis out there wouldn't sell for the price of the fare. I make an effort to congratulate drivers who obviously take pride of driving a clean and comfortable car. There are a couple of drivers in town that even put mints and newspapers in the pocket at the back of the front seats. But these are as rare as it gets. I would bet these guys make more money than the average driver out of tips and they arrive home after a day's work in much better form.

Mylow wrote: »

I really hate when people use the race card...

When race comes into the argumentation it is plain ignorance, full stop.

Ham'nd'egger · 31-01-2008 12:36pm

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

No.

OP - there was a long thread about this very topic a few months ago.

Wishers, I'm commenting on an incident that I saw last night. It just struck me as a specific incident that merited debate

seanabc · 31-01-2008 12:44pm

In my own experience you can't tell much about whether you're going to get a good or a bad taxi driver based on his colour. I have walked up to a rank on a couple of occasions though and then kept walking when I saw the state of the car or just got a bad impression of the driver. My worst experience ever was with an Irish driver who was just obnoxious, but he was a real one off.

Did the taxi they were trying to hail down pick them up? If he did I think he'd be the real villian of the story.

Ham'nd'egger · 31-01-2008 12:53pm

seanabc wrote: »

Did the taxi they were trying to hail down pick them up? If he did I think he'd be the real villian of the story.

It surely did.

Dub13 · 31-01-2008 2:15pm

I got out of a taxi a few weeks ago about a mile into my journey as the driver was so bad,I just told him to pull in and I was not paying.He was not a happy camper,I told him if he had an issue with it to take me to the closest Police station and I will inform them of his reckless driving.It was very bad.

tinofapples · 31-01-2008 3:21pm

1) Has it come to the stage where passengers are feeling that they need to pick the car they travel in, based on the skin of a driver?

This is now common practice in Galway City. Some people say "I was overcharged by one them before and I'm fcuked if there gonna catch me again". Others have other issues such as the vetting of non-national drivers (Which i happen to agree with, how much vetting can be done on someone who has spent majority of their life in another country). Then of course you have people saying that not alone do they not know where they are going but there driving skills ain't up to much.

There's gonna be big changes in Galway, just too many taxis most of the time and not enough rank space for them. The Galway Advertiser has an article on it's front page here :

http://www.galwayadvertiser.ie/content/index.php?aid=10246&PHPSESSID=3232f4570fe03250637bd3d3d28d83dc

murphaph · 31-01-2008 3:37pm

paulm17781 wrote: »

Couldn't agree more. Some standards need to be introduced, standardized cars for one, minimum of football stickers, radio speakers in the front (there is nothing worse than a driver turning up the radio as his passengers are talking over it) and a cleanliness standard.

Indeed. The personal hygiene of some drivers leaves a lot to be desired. The cars too.

dodgyme · 31-01-2008 5:24pm

i love the hypocrisy on this one where after the OP there is the usual comment that someone actually prefers the non national taxi drivers because they are cleaner or quieter. However if someone had posted and said that they rathered irish drivers because the non nationals were flithy or loud they would be called racist.

My own opinion is that you are as likely to be screwed by an irish driver as a non national. Any driver should know where they are going and have basic route info on the city and enough english to get by. This is down to regulation and not nationality.

Zynks · 31-01-2008 5:32pm

Last month at the airport I wanted to take a taxi into town via the port tunnel. The first car was 13 years old and it looked like chickens had been living in it. I said I wouldn't take it. The next one was "just" 10 years old, but looked clean. But the driver refused to go via the tunnel because he was "claustrophobic". So, I finally got into the third taxi and it took me less than 5 minutes to find out the gentleman had 11 points in his drivers license. The three were Irish.
With those standards, nationality and race are irrelevant issues in my view.

tinofapples · 31-01-2008 5:33pm

However if someone had posted and said that they rathered irish drivers because the non nationals were flithy or loud they would be called racist.

So bloody true.

Spook_ie · 31-01-2008 6:33pm

As for the driver over the other side of the road taking the fare, this is happening more and more often, I was parked about 4 cars behind the start of a rank when a punter opened door and asked "Was I free?" so I sent him uptowards the front of the rank ( as I would normaly ) and the very next taxi took them instead, I won't be passing punters up to the front of the queue again if that carries on....

mikedragon32 · 31-01-2008 7:35pm

Surely, OP, as customers we have the right to chose to whom we give our custom?

Everyone has their own priority for choosing a taxi. Some aren't fussy and just happy to be on their way in the first car in the rank and that's fine, but you can't deny the right of the consumer to chose according to their wish/taste, a car of a decent standard, a driver who they perceive to be trustworthy or any other standard they wish to apply.

seanabc · 31-01-2008 8:06pm

mikedragon32 wrote: »

Surely, OP, as customers we have the right to chose to whom we give our custom?

Everyone has their own priority for choosing a taxi. Some aren't fussy and just happy to be on their way in the first car in the rank and that's fine, but you can't deny the right of the consumer to chose according to their wish/taste, a car of a decent standard, a driver who they perceive to be trustworthy or any other standard they wish to apply.

Obviously customers have the right to decide if they want to travel in a particular car with a particular driver for whatever reason. But if that driver is in first position at a taxi rank and is willing to take them I don't think they have a right to just ignore the taxi rank and hail one on the street. While standing at or just beside the rank. They should at least have to move away from the rank. Equally the taxi driver doesn't have the right to refuse a fare from the first person in a queue at a rank provided it's within a reasonable distance.

Wishbone Ash · 31-01-2008 8:53pm

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

OP - there was a long thread about this very topic a few months ago.

Hamndegger wrote: »

Wishers, I'm commenting on an incident that I saw last night. It just struck me as a specific incident that merited debate

Ham'nd'egger - I think you took me up wrongly. I wasn't backseat modding but merely informing you that there was a long thread on this subject which may have been of interest to you.

mikemac · 31-01-2008 11:02pm

Just scanned through this thread so maybe it has been answered.

I must be blind or lucky as I take taxi's 4-5 times a week and can't remember the last time I've noticed anything worth complaining about.

If you go to a rank and you decide to skip the first car, will the next driver refuse to take you and tell you to take the first taxi in the rank?
A bit of an unwritten code of honour between drivers?

Just wondering.......

Our man in Havana · 01-02-2008 1:00am

I have been told to take the first car before. I was even pulled out of the second car by the first driver on the rank.

The Taxi Industry and how ridiculous it has gotten, a drivers view..

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