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Lost Taxi drivers

The_Conductor

Hi,

Just wondering what people's opinions are of new breed of taxi drivers who seem to be errr- locationally challenged? I got a taxi 2 weeks ago from the airport and the driver seriously had no idea of where Lucan village is, or how to get there. At 11.30pm at night after a bloody long day- the last thing you need to do is try to double guess whether she knows where she is going? (In all fairness junction 7 and junction 8 on the M50 were both closed- but a trip to Lucan village from the airport will not normally involve Firhouse, Tallaght, The Belgard Road, Clondalkin, Adamstown, and finally around by the N4 from the Leixlip slip down into the village. Talk about epic.

I mentioned it to a colleague in here- she said that her taxi on Thursday had no idea how to get to Rathmines from the airport- as in, no idea whatsoever. He got into a rage when his satnav wouldn't work and got lost somewhere in D7.

I was going to ring the Taxi Regulator to ask whether taxi drivers here need to do a test, similar to the one cabbies in London have to do- but after exploring the taxi-regulator's website for a few minutes (www.taxiregulator.ie) I simply gave up.

In future- I'm bringing the car with me to the airport.........

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cabrwab

My gripe is when i get in a taxi say stepaside, they say oh jesus that is too far out, tough im in your car, you'll get 25-30 euros for the run, ill even tell you were to go that your gonna get a fare after!! Any way must start complaining

nadie101

4Xcut wrote: »

How is this ever a problem?

You get into the car and ask if he can take you to your destination. If he doesn't know where it is or hesitates, get out and get in the taxi behind him. Its not illegal to go to a taxi that is not first on the rank as far as i'm aware. Even if it is, just let someone go ahead of you and then you don't have to go with the driver who didn't know where he was going. Simple as.

easier said than done when its pissin rain and your walking to get a taxi and there are no queues of cars lined up its just luck if you can pick one up on the road....you dont know who is going to stop you cant eaxactly choose...ok you can decide to get in or not when they do stop but how long more are u going to be waiting out in the street....its not exactly the best of situations to be in:o

MIN2511

I have to say i met a nice taxi driver on thursday, i was trying to get to swords business park for an interview and the first cab driver dropped me at the business campus and i was frustrated, i flagged a cab and your man took me to the business park and told me not to bother paying him:D

Nicest thing done for me in ages

really appreciated it, i was 10minutes late for my interview but because i rang them to inform them twas okay(i hope:rolleyes:)

twanda

I got a taxi to work yesterday with a Dublin driver.

He was telling me that he was stopped at the rank at Blanch Shopping Centre, but although he wasn't the first in line (he was second), a girl who was looking for a taxi came over to him and asked him to take her to Heuston Station because the foreign taxi driver at the front of the queue had no idea where it was. I find that a bit extreme - I mean Heuston Station is the main train station in Dublin! Apparantly the guy in front went mad that the second cab was taking his passenger. He got out of his car and was trying to convince the girl to get back in his cab...

The taxi driver was also telling me that some foreign drivers only need to get 35% in their tests because they are 'underpriviliged'.
Now I don't know if that is true or not, but I certainly hope it isn't :eek:

arybvtcw0eolkf

twanda wrote: »

The taxi driver was also telling me that some foreign drivers only need to get 35% in their tests because they are 'underpriviliged'.
Now I don't know if that is true or not, but I certainly hope it isn't :eek:

50/50 truth.

The fact is that there's 100 questions on the paper, you need only get 70% correct to pass. However that 70% is made up of 'rules and regulations' plus rules of the road.

The 30% your allowed fail is the part of the test dealing with districts/routes districts ajoining districts etc.

So in theory you don't have to know Dublin (not sure about the rest of the country).

Plus, although your required to bring your driver's licence with you there is NO ID check. Once your driver's licence and the letter informing you of your test time, date and location tally - your good to go.

Steve

I can't say I've had any problems like this.

I don't go to ranks, I call a select few taxi companies that I have built up a rep with and who very seldom let me down.

In saying that, I went through about 10 of them that did fail to turn up or were excessively late too often - they'll never get my business again.

MrVestek

I was living out near Woodstown in an apartment about two years ago. Got into a taxi with a foreign national and told him of my destination. I was fairly pissed but still quite coherant at the time... when I noticed that he was taking me there via Crumlin village i got quite pissed off and asked to be taken out of the taxi as he clearly hadn't got a clue where he was going.

All he had to do was take me down towards templeogue past the KCR but he took me down through crumlin village, rathfarnham past the yellow house in dundrum and then proceeded to head towards tallaght.

At that stage I got pissed off and told him to stop the taxi and let me out as I wasn't paying the fare if he was going to go half way around the world to get me there. He wouldn't let me out and insisted I pay the fare so far. He only let me out when I threatened to call the guards.

**** then followed me as I was walking for about a minute constantly honking his horn at me.... was terrified as it was like 4am pitch dark and I was fairly pissed.

Tosser. Should have gotten his number but as many people have said here I was too pissed to cop on.

Not the first time I've bailed out of a taxi journey for taking me on a round the world trip either. Dont pay.... simple.

mondeo

Got a cab from Stephens Green to firhouse 7 nights ago and he had not a balls notion how to get there. The meter had already clocked up 14 euro
and we were going in the wrong direction. Told him to stop, he asked me to pay the 14 euro and I told me to ***k off and said I was gonna report him to the taxi regulator for incompetance and acting all weird in the car...He was a strange character to say the least...

arybvtcw0eolkf

Right so, the message is simple.

DEMAND A RECEIPT

Legally every meter has to print a receipt, regardless if you want it or not, one gets printed.

The receipt contain's the following information..

S.P.S.V. (Small Public Service Vehicle) Licence No#.

Vehicle Reg. No#.

Taxi roofsign No#

Date of the journey, plus time hire commenced and ended.

Prices plus tips, deductions etc.

Everything except the TR's number to bring complaints to her offices attention.

Guys the receipt is a legal document!!!. Its YOUR proof a journey took place in a certain taxi on certain times and date in case of a complaint.

Thing is legally, if your issued a receipt your obligied to pay the metered fare!. If you have a dispute over it your suppose to pay regardless then bring your complaints to a cop or the taxi regulators office.

But anyway, the message - DEMAND A RECEIPT, COMPLAIN TO THE TAXI REGULATORS OFFICE IN THE CASE OF POOR SERVICE.

mondeo

Mairt wrote: »

Right so, the message is simple.

DEMAND A RECEIPT

Legally every meter has to print a receipt, regardless if you want it or not, one gets printed.

The receipt contain's the following information..

S.P.S.V. (Small Public Service Vehicle) Licence No#.

Vehicle Reg. No#.

Taxi roofsign No#

Date of the journey, plus time hire commenced and ended.

Prices plus tips, deductions etc.

Everything except the TR's number to bring complaints to her offices attention.

Guys the receipt is a legal document!!!. Its YOUR proof a journey took place in a certain taxi on certain times and date in case of a complaint.

Thing is legally, if your issued a receipt your obligied to pay the metered fare!. If you have a dispute over it your suppose to pay regardless then bring your complaints to a cop or the taxi regulators office.

But anyway, the message - DEMAND A RECEIPT, COMPLAIN TO THE TAXI REGULATORS OFFICE IN THE CASE OF POOR SERVICE.

It would be hard to get money out of an irishman who knows he is being taken for a fool by being driven into the night by a clueless twit with no sense of direction. There was no way I was gonna expose my wallet to this fella. As far as I'm concerned I was never in that taxi...

I see your point by the way but in practice it wont really happen that way at 3am on a thursday morning.

Ham'nd'egger

There is a number of "schools" that are making a killing in giving what they call training for the Dublin PSV. Typically costing around €300, they little more than hand out photocopies of lists of the questions to the PSV test and tell you to swot up on them. As it is, the test is very easy, with any resident of the city who has been around the city a bit can easy pass; the rules of the road section being common sense stuff that any schoolchild learns.

The mere fact that these courses are allowed to run in the full knowledge of the Taxi Regulator and Carriage Office shows you how flawed the system is relation to driver licence issuing and how rigid the standard of drivers is on the streets. At least one of these schools even claims to be deeply involved in forthcoming driver training courses that the Regulator will be requiring soon!

smccarrick wrote: »

Obviously its not working. What the hell is happening- people lining up to the test on behalf of people who either haven't a clue of Dublin's geography, or don't possess sufficient English to take the test themselves? Also- a point to point isn't necessarily a good measure of someone's geography- if they have a set couple of point-to-points that they use- all you have to do is learn off the name of the streets, and bobs your uncle off you go.......

It has reached the stage where something serious does need to be done. As for the official complaints to the Taxi Regulator- most of the time they simply bat you back to the Carriage Office- its a great mechanism for keeping official complaints down. If the number of people calling the carriage office and the nature of their calls got added into the stats you can be certain that an entirely different story would be told.........

Phoole

Mairt wrote: »

50/50 truth.

The fact is that there's 100 questions on the paper, you need only get 70% correct to pass. However that 70% is made up of 'rules and regulations' plus rules of the road.

The 30% your allowed fail is the part of the test dealing with districts/routes districts ajoining districts etc.

So in theory you don't have to know Dublin (not sure about the rest of the country).

Plus, although your required to bring your driver's licence with you there is NO ID check. Once your driver's licence and the letter informing you of your test time, date and location tally - your good to go.

Wrong. more than 70% of the paper is routes, directions, locations of districts/streets, adjacent districts/streets, locations of hospitals, train stations, museums and places of interests etc. The more streets you name on a particular route, the more you score. The rest of the test is made up of knowledge of the fare card and, quite rightly, rules of the road.

As for the ID check, when you apply at your local garda station, you are checked out for traffic offenses, criminal records etc. You have to be tax compliant and you can receive a random phone call from a member of the carriage office long before your test.

As for the foreign nationals, I was bemused to see two of them trying to copy from me during my test.

arybvtcw0eolkf

Phoole wrote: »

Wrong. more than 70% of the paper is routes, directions, locations of districts/streets, adjacent districts/streets, locations of hospitals, train stations, museums and places of interests etc. The more streets you name on a particular route, the more you score. The rest of the test is made up of knowledge of the fare card and, quite rightly, rules of the road.

As for the ID check, when you apply at your local garda station, you are checked out for traffic offenses, criminal records etc. You have to be tax compliant and you can receive a random phone call from a member of the carriage office long before your test.

As for the foreign nationals, I was bemused to see two of them trying to copy from me during my test.

Wrong.

Phoole

Mairt wrote: »

Wrong.

My test must have been a dream so!

Overheal

Phoole wrote: »

My test must have been a dream so!

drunk much?

Phoole

Overheal wrote: »

drunk much?

hic!

arybvtcw0eolkf

Phoole wrote: »

My test must have been a dream so!

You aren't pregger's so?.

LolaDub

Oh my i've a few horror stories and some just annoying stories of dublin taxis. Had one guy recently who picked myself and a colleague up from a work thing on merrion square, got a taxi together as weren't any around, he lived at vincents hospital and i'm in templeogue. Anyhow dropped him off first and as soon as he was gone the driver started asking me if he ever hit me and if the driver was my boyfriend he would never hit me because he'd want to make love all the time

so weird. I pretended to be on the phone for the rest of the journey. Had to be home for a babysitter so i knew i couldn't just get out and wait for the next one to come along.

AARRRGH

smccarrick wrote: »

From personal experience- other than making a formal complaint which is a time consuming and very unsatisfactory procedure-

Yep, I made a complaint about overcharging. Nothing was done about it.

Is the Taxi Regulator just another pointless organisation who are there to look good but don't actually do anything?

arybvtcw0eolkf

LolaDub wrote: »

Oh my i've a few horror stories and some just annoying stories of dublin taxis. Had one guy recently who picked myself and a colleague up from a work thing on merrion square, got a taxi together as weren't any around, he lived at vincents hospital and i'm in templeogue. Anyhow dropped him off first and as soon as he was gone the driver started asking me if he ever hit me and if the driver was my boyfriend he would never hit me because he'd want to make love all the time so weird. I pretended to be on the phone for the rest of the journey. Had to be home for a babysitter so i knew i couldn't just get out and wait for the next one to come along.

You complained to the taxi regulator I hope?.

marti101

What i hate is pulling in a taxi at 2.30 in the morning and you tell them where you are going and they say no only going southside that really annoyies me.Me being 8 months pregnant and trying to get my shopping in the back and he just sits there after me struggling he asks was i alright.I said grand bang goes your tip and he done the same when i was getting out.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

I remember booking a taxi from Foster's Avenue (going from UCD), and half an hour late, we ring the booking office who get us in touch with the taxi driver (female). SHe didn't know where foster's avenue is. She lost the fare and we flagged another taxi.

[Deleted User]

Galway taxi drivers are sound. Rarely have had a problem with them.

Hermy

Don't they all have GPS yet?

zAbbo wrote: »

Yeah they do, but even then some of them can't use them.

We don't all have GPS. I know my way around the City and I have maps if I get stuck.

zuutroy wrote: »

I drove a taxi for a week just to see what it was like. Hadn't a flippin clue where I was going south of the Liffey...

How can someone who doesn't know their way around Dublin drive a taxi for a week? Were you insured?

Wertz wrote: »

As for a "the knowledge" test for Dublin cabbies? I doubt such a thing exists...

I had to do a test to get my license.

hotshots85 wrote: »

this kind of thing is happening too much lately ffs if anyone of yous in your profession only knew half of what yous are supposed to know to get the job done ,guaranteed you,d be out on your ass in a flash .

I would also encourage every intending passenger to inform themselves of their rights and obligations - then the chancer's mightn't be in such a hurry to try ripping you off.

smccarrick wrote: »

I rang the taxi regulator to complain- and was informed that while I could make a formal complaint- that licensing of the taxis and testing of drivers etc, was a matter for the "Carriage Office" and not a function of the Regulator.

In my opinion the Regulator is a toothless animal.

Tha Gopher wrote: »

A middle aged waffling woman who deliberately "missed" a turn, earning extra 3 quid (of which she kindly knocked off a euro. Cnut)

Why did you pay the extra three euro?

kceire wrote: »

but its the public that NEED to complain, without the complaints, the TR will do nothing!
i would rather a taxi man ask me for the best directions then to bring me home from town to finglas via the M50.

stepbar wrote: »

Of course I was over charged but was too drunk to care at that stage. So I sended up paying about 4 eur extra for the journey (had the meter been kept running). Not a big deal TBH but I'd rather it in my pocket then his.

It is a big deal, you're being robbed! But as long as people continue to be 'too drunk to care' these con artists will continue to thrive.

fredzer wrote: »

I picked the cab up at Dublin Castle and expected him to do a U-turn and head back for College Green.. no dice!

You should not expect your driver to perform an illegal u-turn on a main thoroughfare.

Samson wrote: »

I have heard various rumours, but they are unsubstantiated, so I don't think it is appropriate to repeat them.

Rumours, you say!;)

4Xcut wrote: »

You get into the car and ask if he can take you to your destination. If he doesn't know where it is or hesitates, get out and get in the taxi behind him. Its not illegal to go to a taxi that is not first on the rank as far as i'm aware.

You're quite right. At a rank the intending passenger may decide which taxi to get into.

cabrwab wrote: »

My gripe is when i get in a taxi say stepaside, they say oh jesus that is too far out,

I can never understand drivers who turn down good work!

dublindude wrote: »

Is the Taxi Regulator just another pointless organisation who are there to look good but don't actually do anything?

Yes!

marti101 wrote: »

Me being 8 months pregnant and trying to get my shopping in the back and he just sits there after me struggling he asks was i alright.I said grand bang goes your tip and he done the same when i was getting out.

That's absolutely disgraceful but sadly it does happen. A taxi driver is obliged to give whatever assistance may be necessary but it seems some taxi drivers really go the extra mile to earn their bad name.

OPENROAD

Hermy wrote: »

You're quite right. At a rank the intending passenger may decide which taxi to get into.

In practice though does this not create hassle, I go up to a rank which has ten taxis, I don't fancy the look of taxi no.1 , taxi no 2 looks much more comfortable, by rights I should be able to jump in taxi no.2 but can you imagine the hassle if I attempt to do this.

Spook_ie

OPENROAD wrote: »

In practice though does this not create hassle, I go up to a rank which has ten taxis, I don't fancy the look of taxi no.1 , taxi no 2 looks much more comfortable, by rights I should be able to jump in taxi no.2 but can you imagine the hassle if I attempt to do this.

You won't know till you do it, but I have an easy solution, I just send the passenger to the front car to explain why they don't want it, saves me the hassle of being branded *carist*/racist/sexist or whatever and if the passenger isn't ready to explain then I won't take them

*carist someone who is prejusticed against older cars, though there is nothing illegal or wrong with them..:)

Steve

Spook_ie wrote: »

You won't know till you do it, but I have an easy solution, I just send the passenger to the front car to explain why they don't want it, saves me the hassle of being branded *carist*/racist/sexist or whatever and if the passenger isn't ready to explain then I won't take them

Why not go yourself and explain - the passenger doesn't have to run errands for you.

If I go to a rank and the first car is a clapped out corolla and the second one is a year old merc, guess which one I'm choosing.

FFS, taxi drivers are constantly complaining that there's too many licenses / not enough work and here you are trying to turn away a punter.

If you said that to me there'd be a complaint in straight away.

OPENROAD

Spook_ie wrote: »

You won't know till you do it, but I have an easy solution, I just send the passenger to the front car to explain why they don't want it, saves me the hassle of being branded *carist*/racist/sexist or whatever and if the passenger isn't ready to explain then I won't take them

*carist someone who is prejusticed against older cars, though there is nothing illegal or wrong with them..:)

I have seen someone try it before, the 2nd taxi driver refused to take him, so started a heated argument at the rank, many a time I have gone to a rank when the first few taxi cars looked quite old and maybe the 5th taxi was a brand looking new Merc, that would be my reason for doing it, I can't see that going down well at the rank though

OPENROAD

SteveC wrote: »

Why not go yourself and explain - the passenger doesn't have to run errands for you.

If I go to a rank and the first car is a clapped out corolla and the second one is a year old merc, guess which one I'm choosing.

FFS, taxi drivers are constantly complaining that there's too many licenses / not enough work and here you are trying to turn away a punter.

If you said that to me there'd be a complaint in straight away.

That is why I would love to see a London style taxi here or a standard car, a taxi ride in London is a pleasure, comfortable car, plenty of space, some even have tv screens in the back.

Steve

OPENROAD wrote: »

That is why I would love to see a London style taxi here or a standard car, a taxi ride in London is a pleasure, comfortable car, plenty of space, some even have tv screens in the back.

In Frankfurt they used to be all custom built Mercs - it was a joy to take a taxi there.
I was there earlier this year and there seem to be some other brands creeping in now though.