the worst skangers of the lot.....taxi drivers!!!!!!

hullaballoo · 12-10-2005 05:29PM #1

Opinions please!

ferdi · 12-10-2005 05:33PM

taxi drivers, like everyone else in this society, are out to screw you out of as much money as possible.

KTRIC · 12-10-2005 05:39PM

There is a serious amount of ass rapage going on in Ireland in respect to over pricing, everyone is trying to find the quickest and easiest way of making an extra couple of euro. We have become greedy, simply as that.
When I was growing up in the 80's people had no money and everyone was happy, now we have money and we've all turned into greedy b@stards.

*Angel* · 12-10-2005 05:39PM

Ah now, there's the good and the bad...

county · 12-10-2005 05:41PM

dont know about skangers but dublin taxi drivers are the only people in the western world of taxi drivers that have not got a clue where they are going,do these people not have to do a test or can any joe soap with a driving license take up the profession

KTRIC · 12-10-2005 05:49PM

Ok hold on, true story:

Going to buy a car...

Me: Hi, I'd like to buy that Ford Focus over there for 21,950 on the road
Sales rep: Ok, well actually 21,950 excluding VAT, handling fee and ART
Me: whats ART ??
SR: It's Ass Rapage Tax, when you've paid the VRT , the cost of the car and then your road tax, insurance you come round back of the shop, we put you on a barrell, empty your wallet and f*ck you up the ass.
Me: I don't like the sound of that, doesn't seem fair
SR: Ah well, everyone else does it , why shouldn't we.

This happened, honest ....

hullaballoo · 12-10-2005 05:56PM

dereglation is burning a hole in our social fabric; effectively any joe can become a taxi driver, and every joe is becoming a taxi driver.

there's no protection or filtering, so now any ar$e who can get a bank loan (which is seemingly any ar$e full stop) can simply go onto the roads and drive us about--it's not even a prerequisite that these guys can string two words together--i'm not even talking about the foreign lads (they're usually the best ones) I'm talking about the proper dublin scumbags who take you the long route, overcharge you and then give you back the wrong change.

ratboy · 12-10-2005 05:58PM

or bus drivers and dart station workers, anybody to do with transport in ireland really.

johnny_ultimate · 12-10-2005 06:18PM

They can be pretty bad, but there's a lot of friendly ones out there too. Id say your taking a 50-50 risk when you get in a taxi - sound driver or skanger driver.
I wouldnt say theyre the worst kind of skanger mind - the hurl wielding, murderising type ranks slightly worse in my book

Laguna · 12-10-2005 07:22PM

I wouldn't say all taxi drivers are skangers, I think there some out there who simply want to earn a living and maybe strike up a bit of friendly banter with the customer. I personally can't stand the taxi drivers who started offloading all their racist and xenophobic comments upon you as soon as you get in the car, it's as if they've decided you want to hear it or have the inclination to agree with what they are saying. Taxi fares are starting to get ridiculous though! (even in rural towns)

cil_aine · 12-10-2005 08:25PM

what i do now is say, "Listen i've only got €(insert small-ish amount of money here), can you get me to such and such" or "i've only got €X can you take me as near as possible" It usually works, 8/10 times.

Rb · 12-10-2005 09:45PM

cil_aine wrote:

what i do now is say, "Listen i've only got €(insert small-ish amount of money here), can you get me to such and such" or "i've only got €X can you take me as near as possible" It usually works, 8/10 times.

Yeah that's what I do, though about 7/10 times if I go "I've on €X , could you get me as near to <address> as possible" they'll just drop me to the address.
There's a few skangers driving taxi's, but the majority that I've had weren't.

dundalk cailin · 12-10-2005 09:47PM

the price of taxis over here is fckn ridiculous, cost me 30 yoyos for a journey that wud cost me 10-15 in dundalk, thats on a busy wk end nyt

The Real B-man · 12-10-2005 10:48PM

some are good some are gangsters i know a male stripper who drives a taxi during the day :rolleyes:

funk-you · 13-10-2005 01:20AM

i have to get a lot of taxis due to work etc and ive found that the bad to good ratio will be about 60/40.

there are the taxi drivers out there who'll remember every route to your destination except the one that'll have the least traffic or forget that there is a concert/match on in croke park when they've just told you 5 mins before that they've just come back out of town.

there are also the ones who will bring you half way around the country when they hear a non dublin accent. my girlfriend is from belfast and when we get into a taxi together and she says the destination the driver 6-7 times out of 10 will say "yeh, i'll go (insert long way) it'll be quicker" but the second i say anything and he hears i'm from dublin the whole story changes.

trying to get a taxi home in town in dublin on the weekend is madness. the road could be filled with empty taxi's who'll take their time and pick and choose what fares to pick up. talking to a lot of taxi drivers they have told me they wouldn't even go near a rank either on the weekend.

Now saying all this there are a lot of taxi drivers who are just your average nice bloke out to make a living and some taxi drivers are the most interesting people ive met. i understand that these people are out to make a living but they are mainly there to provide a public service which we are not getting. being stranded in town for between half an hour to two hours on a saturday night because no taxi will stop or go to a rank is ridiculous no matter what way you look at it.

on the whole though i do believe all taxi drivers are stuck with the stigma of being money-grabbing and scumbaggish(if thats even a word) when its the bad apples definitely spoiling it for the rest. we need taxi regulations to be inforced rather than just heres your licence off you go.

also on prices: when it gets to rate 2 on the meter if you order a taxi it'll be 3.70 min fare + E2 for ordering, so before you've even moved it's already cost you 5.70. for me to get from blanchardstown to town it's a min of E20-E25. for only doing 20 mins work i dont care what type of overheads you have that is a crazy amount of money, i spent 4 years in college and dont make that, not that i begrudge it, fair play but something is going to have to be done if people are being taken the long way round at these kind of prices.

Oh and if a taxi driver tells you he doensn't know what way he's meant to go 99% of the time he'll be lying because in order to get a taxi licence they have to pass an exam which tests their knowledge of the city. they even have to know tiny streets off other streets and "that laneway beside the road" etc... how to get to certain hotels/trainstations/airport etc...etc...

anyway rant over.
-Funk

de5p0i1er · 13-10-2005 05:34AM

K-TRIC wrote:

When I was growing up in the 80's people had no money and everyone was happy, now we have money and we've all turned into greedy b@stards.

Thats the best decription of modren Ireland I've ever heard, we have gotten greedy. Sooner or later it will come back and bite us.

Our man in Havana · 13-10-2005 06:21AM

Funk-you wrote:

Oh and if a taxi driver tells you he doensn't know what way he's meant to go 99% of the time he'll be lying because in order to get a taxi licence they have to pass an exam which tests their knowledge of the city. they even have to know tiny streets off other streets and "that laneway beside the road" etc... how to get to certain hotels/trainstations/airport etc...etc...

Yep, in London they must do the exam called the knowledge. In Dublin there is no such exam afaik.

MorningStar · 13-10-2005 08:17AM

hullaballoo wrote:

dereglation is burning a hole in our social fabric; effectively any joe can become a taxi driver, and every joe is becoming a taxi driver.

there's no protection or filtering, so now any ar$e who can get a bank loan (which is seemingly any ar$e full stop) can simply go onto the roads and drive us about--it's not even a prerequisite that these guys can string two words together--i'm not even talking about the foreign lads (they're usually the best ones) I'm talking about the proper dublin scumbags who take you the long route, overcharge you and then give you back the wrong change.

I'm not seeing any difference between this and they way they were before. I think Taxi drivers are more polite than before. Taxi drivers used to kick people out of their cabs all the time before. As there were not enough cabs you could end up in real difficulty. THe arrogance level of Taxi drivers appears to have gone down.

Fuhrio · 13-10-2005 10:02AM

Some people here should really be careful what they say.
My Dad is a taxi driver, and like most of you/ your parents here, he is just making a living. They are NOT all skangers, in fact, the vast majority arent skangers.

Personally, I think the prices of taxi's are ridiculous but from seeing my Dad work, unless you work a huge amount of hours you come out with a fairly average wage, if the prices were lower, they wouldnt even make that, so its fair enough.

Sleepy · 13-10-2005 10:09AM

Can you really blame Taxi Drivers for wanting to avoid the ranks and cherry pick their customers at the weekends? The amount of people out there that get absolutely wankered at the weekend and then pose a serious risk of vomitting in their car is massive. Sure, there's a fine in place for doing it but how many people carry that amount on them on their way home from town on a Saturday night? And the fine wouldn't even cover what it'll cost the driver to be off the road for the night.

I know that in order to get a PSV licence in Galway, you have to take a knowledge test to demonstrate you know your way around the city. While I can't say the same for Dublin with any authority, I'd be very surprised if it's not the same. The knowledge level required to pass this exam though, I can't comment on.

In regard to the high fares, again, the biggest gangsters in Ireland are one of the main reasons for this. Insurance on a taxi can be over 5 or 6 thousand a year. Constantly increasing fuel costs can't help either.

The only one's that really get on my nerves are the type Laguna referred to: the xenephobes that choose to perpetuate the idea that refugees are instantly given the keys to a car as soon as they land in Rosslare :rolleyes:

Now, in fairness, I think the charges can be ridiculously high for the service you're getting. It costs me approx €25 to get a taxi home on a Friday/Saturday night because I live in Foxrock/Deansgrange (Still not sure which it is!). Like most of the "rip-offs" in Ireland, however, there's more to it than simply the person providing the goods/service over-charging.

MorningStar · 13-10-2005 10:24AM

Sleepy wrote:

Can you really blame Taxi Drivers for wanting to avoid the ranks and cherry pick their customers at the weekends? etc...

Actually you can blame them, they may think they are all private operators but they aren't. They are a public service that is licenced. In other words they don't have the right legally to pick and choose. The job involves that risk if they don't like it then they can do something else. The taxi trade is notorious for tax evasion and free money (tips) .
By picking and choosing they actually cause certain social issues to be worse.

Iago · 13-10-2005 10:36AM

Facts

1. All taxi drivers have to pass a knowledge test before they are given a licence. In fact legislation has just changed so that they now have to go back and resit this test on either an annual or bi-annual (one or the other, not sure which) basis. If they fail this test they lose their licence.

2. All fares are dictated by the regulator and cannot be changed or tampered with by the taxi driver. Whatever the meter says the fare is, is the amount that the regulator has agreed to.

3. Generally speaking taxi drivers will take the quickest route to get you to their destination, if doesn't make sense for them to take you the long way. All taxi drivers will tell you that the best fares are the "short hops", rides that take less than 10 minutes because of the high initial cost of getting into a taxi.

4. Taxi drivers work the whole of a county. In Dublin you could easily get a driver from Blanchardstown who got a fare to Shankill. Once there they pick you up and you want to go to Blackrock. They may only know one way to get there and that's the way they'll go unless you request otherwise. Some might admit to being in an unknown place, others will be too proud or too sick of comments like "you're the taxi driver, why don't you know where to go"? They do know the way to go, but they don't know the shortcuts and local routes all the time.

5. The problem at the weekends isn't down to the taxi drivers, it's down to the government and regulators. Instead of opening up the legislation to allow more taxis on the road they should have offered restricted licences that could only be used at the weekend and carried a lower fee to buy as a result. We still have the same problems we've always had, there are far too many taxis on the road at off-peak times, and not enough at peak times.

6. As has been mentioned above, not knowing the quickest/shortest route to a given destination, hardly makes you a scumbag. Charging what you are legally entitled to charge as dictated by the regulator and government is not scumbaggish behaviour. Picking and choosing which customers you want to pick up, is something that is done in every industry in the world, and doesn't make them any better or worse than anybody else who is in business for themselves.

Disclaimer: I'm not and have never been a taxi driver, just in case you think I've an agenda here

Canis Lupus · 13-10-2005 10:50AM

Come over to London and enjoy the black cab fares over here. That should stop you lot complaining.

Raiser · 13-10-2005 11:13AM

Yep - generally do dislike taxi drivers.

Poor hygiene, green tatoos, and ignorant f*ck*ng attitude springs to mind.

& They never let you out @ junctions - EVER.

- I Do pity the good and decent ones that have to share the category with the scumbag ones.

MorningStar · 13-10-2005 11:38AM

Iago wrote:

Facts

1. All taxi drivers have to pass a knowledge test before they are given a etc...

the detail
1 The test isn't sufficient
2 Taxi men press buttons tothat increase fares and most peope don't know what is going on. Some taxi men increase fairs this way.
3 Taxi men do not always take the quickest route and everybody has experience of this.
4. In other cities the taxi drivers have a better knowledge of the city and suburbs. The current skill level is poor and always has been so it is not a new feature
5 Taxi driver are the problem with taxi drivers not picking up people. The regulations don't tell the drivers not to pick up people in fact they say the opposite. it is next to impossible to pick up a taxi driver off the street at the weekend
6 They don't have the right to pick and choose their customers without stopping or refusing to go places within the metered area.

To complain about the regulations misses the point about what taxis did to themselves. They held the city to hostage refused reasonable discussion. They were given a lot of rope and they hung themselves.
I don't actually have anything against them but the points were overblown.

Dilly1 · 13-10-2005 11:52AM

county wrote:

dont know about skangers but dublin taxi drivers are the only people in the western world of taxi drivers that have not got a clue where they are going,do these people not have to do a test or can any joe soap with a driving license take up the profession

Arent they all drug dealers ? surely they should know the streets by now :rolleyes:

Dilly1 · 13-10-2005 11:56AM

K-TRIC wrote:

There is a serious amount of ass rapage going on in Ireland in respect to over pricing, everyone is trying to find the quickest and easiest way of making an extra couple of euro. We have become greedy, simply as that.
When I was growing up in the 80's people had no money and everyone was happy, now we have money and we've all turned into greedy b@stards.

I agree with you there, everyone ripping each other off.
And people hoarding money in multiple bank accounts, someone was explaining
to me that it is because we never had money before, so we have become greedy and
will now sell our own grand mother for a few extra quid to put into that bank account.
Another thing I have noticed is that the Irish seem to be trying so hard to act sophisticated and
European that they just end up coming across smug and obnoxious with these made up accents
and dodgy suntans. sad really.

MorningStar · 13-10-2005 12:26PM

Dilly1 wrote:

I agree with you there, everyone ripping each other off.
And people hoarding money in multiple bank accounts, someone was explaining
to me that it is because we never had money before, so we have become greedy and
will now sell our own grand mother for a few extra quid to put into that bank account.
Another thing I have noticed is that the Irish seem to be trying so hard to act sophisticated and
European that they just end up coming across smug and obnoxious with these made up accents
and dodgy suntans. sad really.

Actually nothing has changed. People in Dublin are the same. IN the 80s people were as greedy just look at all the bogus accounts. AS people are in more debit now I think you might be wrong about the cash in banks too. Irish people try to act sophisticated isn't really the problem in my eyes. The only new accents in Dublin are of new imigrants.
THere are certainly a ton of people who are garish to say the least but that was the same before. The only difference is a bit of money, local scum used to have a suped up scooter now has a suped up car. They now have expensive horrible gold jewlery and use sun beds more. The people haven't changed.

japanpaul · 13-10-2005 12:32PM

I am from Dublin and have never had a problem with taxis myself but nearly any friend I have from outside of Dublin has many, many stories. The most common is the driver finding out by "friendly conversation" whether they are living in or visiting Dublin and then going a round about way if they seem new to the city.
The thing that has really turned me against taxis is my girlfriend getting ripped off so much. She is Japanese and since coming here has used taxi's 6 times and has been ripped off 4 times.
One of these times was her friends who were in a taxi behind us coming back from Johnny Fox's. They paid E5 more than us for same journey, same num of passengers.
She has had a taxi driver use a map to find the street where I live (easy to find street).
She rang me once and put me on to the taxi driver because she knew he was going the wrong way. He said he didn't understand her accent. I waited at my front door and gave him tenner and said if he had any complaints call the gardai.
The worst was her being charged E45 to get from Stephen's Green to Tempelogue via Churchtown to drop off 2 friends. Shouldn't be anymore than E25.
I just go and collect her in anymore because I have totally lost faith. When I do use them now I never tip, even waited for 20c last week. I used to always tip in the past.

godtabh · 13-10-2005 12:56PM

Its the same with evey walk of life. You get your good and your bad.

I once got out of a taxi and my phone fell out. I relaised just as I cloesed the door. Tried to stop the taxi driving off but he wont stop (nothing mad waving arms and gesturing). Rand the phone (could still see the taxi). Didnt answer. Rang it again and was turned off. Reporet him but the carriage office where fcuk all use.

Another time I got a taxi from town to Lucan. First night it was the usual €25. Second night it was €45. Since then I've gotten the night link home when needed. This isnt practical for every one espically for the ladies but i think if you go in groups and some one has their wits about them you should be ok.

Big Nelly · 13-10-2005 01:55PM

the title of this thread sounds very familiar to something I said about taxi drivers robbing mobiles on friends of mine!!

the worst skangers of the lot.....taxi drivers!!!!!!

Comments