Cablog

Cab Cops

For Sydney taxi passengers it's worth knowing that the Ministry of Transport actively polices cabs and drivers. Whilst appearing anywhere they regularly attend locations involving large movements of passengers and cabs. Recently I noted their presence after the One Day Cricket International, monitoring the Fox Studios cab rank.

On Sunday evening I pulled into an Airport terminal rank to be greeted by two female passengers with golf clubs and luggage. It was obvious they needed a station wagon and fortunately one arrived behind me. One woman was sharp enough to immediately request a swap with a passenger destined for the station wagon. Done, too easy.

However the wagon driver stayed seated in his cab whilst the women started loading their own luggage. From nowhere a non-uniformed bloke was at the cabbie's window, flashed a badge and challenged him for not helping the women load up. Later I spotted this official climbing into a Ministry of Transport vehicle (click image). 

So if you think cabbies can pretty much do as they like, they can't and never know when 'cab cops' will suddenly appear. Cabbies are answerable to the Police, the RTA, Ministry of Transport, Taxi Council, taxi networks, Airport marshals, taxi rank security, council parking inspectors...sheesh. And that's even before cabbies get home for more grilling! 

Domestic Blues

Did anyone fly into Sydney Domestic Airport this weekend and wait for a taxi ?

A new system of distributing taxis from the holding yard to the terminals has come into effect using electronic tags and boom gates. Whilst this has eliminated queue jumping cabs by requiring them to first go through the holding yard, it appears they are slower reaching the actual ranks. At least during times of peak demand such as last night.

If anyone was affected by long queues at the rank I would be interested to hear your view of the rank marshal/s. From what I saw they were pretty ordinary at times in directing passengers to approaching or waiting cabs. 

Hence the many frustrated looks received from harried passengers tired and anxious to get home. If it's any consolation it's just as frustrating waiting in the holding yard only to then find hundreds of waiting passengers at the terminal. If only we could get together sooner.   

Also I'd be interested to hear of passengers being accosted by hire car touts, either inside the terminal or in the taxi queue.

I trust everyone has had a wonderful Christmas, New Year and Australia Day. Welcome back to the coalface, feel free to hail a cab but please, don't slam the door. Thanks.

Resuming

Apologies for lack of recent posts due to tiredness from a heavy work schedule. Hope to resume normal blogging tomorrow.

After carting drunks over the last couple of nights (Australia Day night was especially punishing) this voucher really amused me, as it would for most cab drivers. Life, it's different for cabbies.

UPDATE : In the wake of hotel smoking bans Yobbo posts on a dangerous new epidemic, Shed Drinking 

Sounds/Sights

A previous Cablog post I can't find, actually don't want to, details a passenger vomiting. From memory the post used the phrase - two minutes of excruitiating sound effects.

Well it's been confirmed by an exhaustive online study that the sound of vomiting is the world's most horrible noise, beating squealing babies and scratching chalk boards. Though cabbies already knew this. My vote would go to the sound of a detonating thermonuclear device over a populated area, whatever that sounds like.

One of the worst public sights is of people openly spitting, a practise of which I was once a serial offender. And in particular public spitting is commonplace in China where, apparently, it's been an acceptable 'lifestyle' choice. So much so one Chinese city is looking to outlaw public spitting with a targetted campaign which includes taxi spitting, Shangai taxis to be equipped with spit sacks,

The public health watchdog Shanghai Patriotic Sanitation Committee has vowed to ensure that all the 45,000 taxies in the city carry "spitting sacks" within a year.

The sacks will be distributed among taxi drivers free of charge at regular intervals, and will be attached to the riot plate that separates a driver from the passengers so that both can, if need be, spit into it.

Some don't think much of the idea forecasting, This solution is a recipe for disaster. Hit the link for some grisly predictions, if you dare. Remedies include the suggestion of, commendations for cabdrivers with non-spitting lifestyles.  

Excessive

Okay, here's a confession - I have an Aussie flag adorning my PC work station. Call me a racist gangster if you like but I found it, I liked it, so I placed it there. No big deal. However I was taken aback walking into Woolies last night when confronted by flag overdose. Yes I know it's nearly Australia Day but gees, it was a needlessly excessive.

Speaking of excessive I came across these two characters during the week in Kings Cross, one with his arm thrust down a drain hole. A good twenty minutes later I passed by again to find the bloke still at it, using a wire fishing tool. Hope it was worth it.

It reminded me of an incident when I was younger and sillier. Standing at a bar in my local pub one night chatting with a friend, I became aware of a girl on her hands and knees crawling between our legs. She was rummaging through the cigarette foot trough. 'What the hell are you doing ?', I asked. 'I've lost a pink elephant', she moaned. This was in the days when LSD was all the rage.

Some Winners

Kicked off the shift last night around 7pm with a dream run. First up I scored a radio job from out west to the International Airport. The passenger was noticeably concerned he was being taken on a Cooks tour rather than the usual cabbie route. Upon arriving at the Airport with the meter showing ten dollars less than expected he cheered up enough to sling me a twenty cent tip...

Blogslapping

When reporting on passengers behaving badly I’m forever changing identifying details in order they remain anonymous. Yet at times I really wonder why they don’t deserve public shaming. For example, consider the following passenger from last night’s shift...

Animals 2

Yesterday I posted on daily attacks on cabbies around the world. No big surprise, sadly. Also of no surprise is the not uncommon amount of sexual assaults by cabbies on passengers. A few days ago a Malaysian cabbie was sentenced for raping a passenger. The previous week a cabbie in England was convicted of rape and yesterday a US cabbie was jailed for sexually assaulting a passenger...

Animals

Each day I receive a news digest of taxi driver stories from English language newspapers around the world. The digest is dominated by reports of driver attacks and murders. Whilst the US generally leads the amount of driver attacks England, minus London, is vying for the disgraceful title as the worlds most dangerous country for cabbies.

The digest averages eight to a dozen notable stories each day, of which 90% pertain to violence against cabbies. It gets so that one blithely scans the horror headlines without so much as reading the particulars, so desensitizing is the amount of attacks reported.

However this week a case has caught my attention due to the sheer callousness shown towards a Somali driver in Edmonton, Canada. He was a 41 year old father of seven who had the fatal misfortune of picking up a drink and drug bingeing party of...animals,

"Let's go finish this".

(Last week's horror case -  "All in on plan")

Some Moments

Late yesterday afternoon I carried an office jockey home to Bankstown in Sydney's south west. His house was a newish two storey brick monument to privacy. As he filled out the paperwork the house next door caught my eye. It was a shabby fifties fibro shack with an aged caravan in the front yard. Tethered to the van was a baby goat grazing on the lawn. It was a novel sight in my taxi travels and I guessed the owner intended eating the little bugger.

After midnight a journalist related how his office was gearing up for the forthcoming State election. ‘Do you realise’, I remarked, ‘that your mob and the pollies are probably the only ones interested in the event ?’. He quickly set me straight. ‘It would be a mistake to assume we’re actually interested. If we had our way we’d print a front page banner - "Vote for none of the bludgers" - but that’s probably illegal’. ‘Well’, I assured him, ‘at least that painful campaign will warm you up for the Federal election later on’. ‘Yeah’, he quipped, ‘Mr Dull versus Mr Duller !’. Problem is, it’s unclear who he meant by ‘Mr Duller’, Howard or Rudd ?

Finally at 2 am I was hailed by a hotel bouncer in Newtown. Needing one more job to complete the night I cautiously grilled the bouncer. ‘Nah, it’s four women’, he said, ‘they’re okay, just a little drunk’. After an eternity four Scottish women poured themselves into the cab for Waterloo.

Yes, they were drunk, legless in fact but also funny, delightful and no trouble. There was a daughter in her twenties, her mother around fifty, a grandmother around seventy and her friend. It didn’t take long for them to break into song, belting out a classic.

A song I’d like to share with you, if only on the basis that a problem shared is a problem halved, so I can hopefully get the bastard out of my head. Now sing, sing a song with Karen...please..?