Boycott African Taxi Drivers

motherfunker

I dont want this thread to be misconstrued as a racist attack or an attack on a particular nationality. I have several African friends and through my work in the past few years I have come into direct contact with loads of African people and I would like to state here that I have nothing but respect for most if not all of these people I have met, I love hearing about their native countries and what life is like there and have had many good discussions about Ireland and Africa with these people, out of all the groups of people who have migrated to Ireland I would say the Africans are by far my favourite.

The reason I have started this thread is becuase of the treatment of two english visitors to the town on Friday night. After all the bad press African taxi drivers had got in the past few weeks I thought things might have changed but to my surprise they have not. My friends wedding was on at the weekend and they had several friends over from England. It was only a small quiet do so my wife and I decided to go into town with the brides brother and one of her friends. We paid €12 for a taxi into town and took the 2 visitors to a few pubs in town. We got a taxi outside Voodoo at about 3am, I was a bit wary at first as he was an African driver but as I said I thought things might have changed since all the bad press over the last few weeks. We got him to drop me and my wife off first in Meadow Hill for which we paid him €10, the other 2 people were staying in Castlegrove house which for those of you who are not familiar with the area is about 4 minutes drive from Meadow Hill. Knowing well that the other 2 people were not locals he drove them on a very long journey to castlegrove house, only actually taking them there when they questioned why it was taking so long, he then charged them another €25 for that part of the journey, a 4 minute drive, that meant it cost €35 from voodoo to Castlegrove house. The visitors thought we had not paid for our part of the journey as it was one of those drunken "we'll pay" "no, we'll pay" things. It was only when my wife met them the next day we found out about the whole thing.
I am disgusted about this, I have lived in Letterkenny for over 30 years and only twice in my life have I been ripped off by a taxi, both of them African drivers.
As I said at the beginning of this thread this is not a racist thing and I hope the moderators will not go all pc and lock this thread, this is a problem in Letterkenny and one that needs a bit of direct action. If there are ligitimite African taxi drivers in this town then it is up to them to get rid of these thieves. I for one will never set foot in a cab driven by an African again, I will explain this to my African friends the next time I see them and tell them it is their community that is being damaged by these people and it is up to them to control the problem.

Boycott African Taxi Drivers!

steph1

If you have the plate number (its on the roofsign of the taxi) get this number and report him to the taxi regulators office.

It does not matter whether the driver is black white yellow or whatever. This type of behaviour is what gives all taxi drivers a bad name and the public think that all taxi drivers are ripping them off. That is the only cure for this.

By any chance did you get a receipt or had the driver the meter on at all.?

motherfunker

I wish I had been sober or attentive enough to take note of any of these details because I would definitely report this, that is why I am having to resort to reporting it here.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Listen that incident is partly your fault.

If I had foeign visitors in a taxi(doesn't matter what the nationality of the driver) and they were getting out last, when paying my share I'd say to the driver "what's the total fair going to be", that way he'd have to say something reasonable or you could pull him up on it, and then he couldn't say a different fair when they were getting out.

Would you have started a boycott local drivers thread if the driver had been white.

When I was in waterford I had an African driver and he knew I wasn't local, but asking around afterward he charged me a competitive price.

steph1

motherfunker wrote: »

I wish I had been sober or attentive enough to take note of any of these details because I would definitely report this, that is why I am having to resort to reporting it here.

Well I'm afraid there is not really much point 'reporting' it on here as nobody can do anything about it here except to give you advice.

Just a few quick points in relation to taxis. The obvious sign of the licence number (plate) is the roofsign and there is a five digit number on this which is the taxi plate licence which links the driver to the vehicle. This number also appears on the printed receipt which you should ask for at the end of your journey.

Also on the front and back windows of a taxi on the passenger side there is a yellow sticker (in the case of a taxi) and the numbers are on that and also the driver identification should be in a place on the dashboard where it is clearly visible to all passengers both front and back and that gives the driver's name and his psv licence number and the area in which he or she is entitled to operate.

This practice of overcharging and literally taking people for a ride has got to stop. It gives all of us drivers a bad name.

Always make sure that the meter is turned on when you commence your journey and there may be extras added on if there are extra passengers or a call out charge. The driver is entitled to charge this. At the end of the journey take your receipt and if there are any queries address them with the driver before leaving the vehcile. If not resolved then report to the regulator.

Unfortunately Irish people in general are very lax in taking further action and just leave things be. But in fairness this is not the right way to go about things. The more reports that are sent to the regulator the better and the industry will be rid of these types of drivers.

Taxis are providing a very good service especially in unsocial hours late at night. Taxi drivers that operate correctly will have the meter turned on and then there is no problem as the passenger can see exactly what the charge is.

So there ya go. Lesson over

Local-womanizer

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

Listen that incident is partly your fault.

If I had foeign visitors in a taxi(doesn't matter what the nationality of the driver) and they were getting out last, when paying my share I'd say to the driver "what's the total fair going to be", that way he'd have to say something reasonable or you could pull him up on it, and then he couldn't say a different fair when they were getting out.

Would you have started a boycott local drivers thread if the driver had been white.

When I was in waterford I had an African driver and he knew I wasn't local, but asking around afterward he charged me a competitive price.

In fairness,its not.The OP and friends where drunk and taken advantage of.If a white taxi driver had done it I would be as equally as p1ssed.

I dont use african taxis,I have once and it was grand,he dident put the meter on and asked me what I usually get charge,and took that.But since the bad press lately I only use the few Taxi drivers I know,I know them personnally.

motherfunker

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

Listen that incident is partly your fault.

If I had foeign visitors in a taxi(doesn't matter what the nationality of the driver) and they were getting out last, when paying my share I'd say to the driver "what's the total fair going to be", that way he'd have to say something reasonable or you could pull him up on it, and then he couldn't say a different fair when they were getting out.

Would you have started a boycott local drivers thread if the driver had been white.

When I was in waterford I had an African driver and he knew I wasn't local, but asking around afterward he charged me a competitive price.

When I got into the taxi and saw he was an African guy I was going to make a semi cheeky remark about getting a fair price for the run but I decided not to, partly because I dident want to tar them all with the same brush and thought I would give him the benefit of the doubt and partly because of the reaction the guy in the paper got when he complained, I dident want to make him angry at the start of the journey. When we were getting out of the cab at our house I was going to ask how much it was going to be to finish the run but again I thought I would not tar him with the thieving african taxi driver brush and said I would trust him. These were all split second decisions taken while I had been drinking for several hours and was in generally good form, not wanting to ruin the moment by accusing a guy of robbing us before he even did it just becuase of the colour of his skin.

I'n not really reporting it here, I'm just venting my anger on here in the hope that it may spur others into following my action and boycotting these drivers. I know white local drivers may have done this in the past, present and maybe even the future but I think the problem in Letterkenny at the minute is largely based on African drivers.

muffler

The title of the thread alone is racist never mind the content. Locked