Guarantees

Runners are the bane of a cabbies existence costing anywhere from five bucks to a life. At best passengers will simply run, leaving the driver to rue his failure to anticipate the event and/or take preemptive action. At worst, runners can kill you.

Unlike many cabbies I tend to trust those passengers who should be treated with maximum prejudice. And luckily, over the years the vast majority of potentially dodgy passengers have paid. In fact I can only recall two incidences involving runners where sizable fares were at stake. Even then, both cases fortunately coincided with the arrival of the police, though for mixed results.

Early this morning on Oxford Street two youngish women and a fella climbed in and ordered a far, south-western suburb. Instinctively I baulked, not due to the distance involved but in scrambling to assess the likelihood of them running. They had boarded outside an grunge/goth/emo club and were suitably attired in basic black.

However by the time we exited the City I was reasonably confident they would pay. They weren’t drunk but rather subdued and it wasn’t long before they all nodded off. This was understandable after a long night clubbing and facing a forty minute freeway trip home.

Still, somewhere in the back of the brain is a little gremlin which quietly chides me during these late night, $100 fares for young 'uns, with no guarantee of being paid.

A while ago I did a similar job to the same district with four kids around eighteen years of age. Their drunken, boisterous and immature behaviour indicated they rarely used cabs or could even afford cabs. Consequently, the mind gremlin was continuously yelling, ‘You idiot, they’re gunna rip you - get the bucks up-front, now !’

So when two of the party alighted half-way, I asked the remaining passengers how they intended paying. At this point I figured it better to lose only $50 than a $100. If they couldn’t produce cash then I’d demand their plastic be processed before further travel.

However the young girl blithely replied, "Don’t worry, I’ve got a Cabcharge voucher." Immediately I relaxed knowing this was as good as a guarantee, despite the fact the issuer was an international financial institution and she needed guidance on how to fill out the voucher. Whether stolen or whatever it would be honoured, and so it was.

Nearing this morning’s destination the desired full guarantee came with an exchange between the passengers. "Um, do you mind paying the fare, Natalie ? I’m out of bucks so I’ll fix you up later at Mass this morning." No worries, finally.

Comments

[MANLY CABBIE]

long job to a far off suberb with young ones is always money up front or find another sucker.but even that doesn't mean you'll get the cash i had one fare in the country town where i sometimes drive on new years day going to the next town a $90 fare with 4 young guys made them show me the money first (should have taken it at the start)get to destination and they run so i chase the smallist he jumps a fence,fence gives way and lands on head splits head open and more than likly needed a trip to the hospital for some patch up work so i left it at that.KARMA.

[Goldstein]

Pick up in city, going to Moana (40km?), guy is drunk, fat, 30ish.. We get to some road in the middle of bloody no-where, he says "Here'll do".

I pull up, he just gets out and starts running (staggering?) down the road, I think "You are shitting me? He's doing a runner??".

I get out, chase him, shove him, fat moron hits the deck and rolls down the sloping road shoulder. I go down to him, demand the cash, he shoves a $50 note into his underwear.. I think, no way I am touching this git's cruets, so I check his pockets, take $11 in change, and check his ID, tell him I know where he lives, and leave him sitting in the mud -calling the cops out would waste hours, and I couldn't be bothered. At least I didn't run him over...

[Andaragon]

Try to do a runner in San Antonio,Texas and you will end up dead.
One of the most appalling incidents I have ever seen in my life, a drunk Mexican ran away from a cabbie in San Antonio without paying, the cabbie pulled a gun and shot the Mexican dead. I waited round as a witness, and the police took my name and pretty much laughed and said he won't run away again will he?

[Mick Silver]

The problem with asking for a deposit(not the word I would use) is that you are basically saying to the person(s) that I don`t trust you. The fare obviously not starting in a good manner. The solution to this being don`t pick up people who fit into the above criterium.

[Yobbo]

Or you could just ask everyone for the money up front, that way you aren't making any judgement about them, it's just your regular practice.

[AG Canberra]

I wonder if the non-english speaking cabbies experience runners more often? If he can't speak English is he less likely to report you to the police?

[James]

Andaragon, why was that appalling? An armed society is a polite society. When one reads of the number of armed robberies, home invasions, etc, that happen in supposedly polite places like Sydney or London where guns are outlawed (and thus only outlaws have guns) and where those who do fight back face the full fury of the law, one wishes for that sort of cooperative relationship between police and citizenry as you witnessed in Texas.

[Yobbo]

Shooting a guy in the back when he's running away is not "fighting back", and is illegal even in Texas. However, many cabbies in the US do carry firearms for legitimate protection.

Some in Australia do, less legitimately.

[manly cabbie]

do a runner get shot running away sounds pretty good to me,you'll never try to rip off any one again and the world is minus one less scumbag.

[Yobbo]

And you'll go to jail for murder.

[James]

Jesus, Yobbo, did a cabbie's kid beat you up and take your lunch money when you were in school? Did your girlfriend run off with a cabbie? About 95% per cent of the time you present as a right-thinking bloke but you become completely unhinged at the subject of taxi drivers. Cabbies can't defend themself. Cabbies have no right to decide who gets into their cabs. The whole damn cab system is engineered to screw Yobbo, and cabbies are on the front-line of this operation. Is the taxi system perfect? Far from it. I'd love to see more licenses out there, more competition. I go out on the weekend and have a hard time getting home like everyone else, and sometimes I have to give turn by turn directions from my well-known inner-city suburb to landmarks in the CBD. Often, far from ideal.

But really, I seriously worry that you're going to pull a reverse Travis Bickle on us one day. Lighten up. When it comes to cabbies you sound like Pat Reynolds on the subject of barbers.

[Dataceptionist]

This isn't an issue about Cabbies being against Yobbo, its saying Murdering someone for skipping off on a $25 fare isn't right, EVER.
Murder is murder.
James I think you need to rethink your position, lest you sound like an American citizen who fights for the Right To Bear Arms....
I'm not anti-gun, but legalising them so that some kid could be shot getting out of a cab? Thats plain ridiculous.

Adrian, do you really consider it a shooting offence?

[Yobbo]

Get a grip James. Shooting someone in the back when they are running away is not, and never will "Self-Defense".

And I have no problems with Australian Cabbies carrying guns for self-defense. I am a gun-rights advocate.

But again, shooting someone in the back when they are running away is not Self-Defence, it is murder.

Even if they stole from you, it is still murder.

[Yobbo]

And it's not taxi drivers I have a problem with, it's the the regulation of the taxi industry. And Adrian continually defending such regulation.

[adrian]

Datarecptionist, that's a loaded question, like, how long have you been beating your wife ? Sorry but I'm loathe to get into this debate, as much as I refuse to bite at Yobbo's continual baiting.

[Yobbo]

I'm not baiting you Adrian. Im responding to the previous comments in this post. Paranoid much?

[James]

Well Adrian is correct, these feuds are mighty boring but (1) we're assuming that things went down in San Antone exactly as Andaragon says. Popular conceptions about Texas notwithstanding I suggest that there might be more to the story than a "cold-blooded murder".

Point (2), this sort of fuzzy thinking then leads us down the slippery slope where self-defence is criminalised and honest house-holders, publicans, etc, wind up in the cells and then paying out huge damages for "loss of livelihood" to some scum who nobody would miss anyway. Anyone remember in early 2002, I think, the guy who bashed a kid who broke into his pub after hours and got done for it? Or the farmer who shot the home invaders in England and wound up getting 20 years?

This situation is rampant in England, and marveluosly satirized by the comic duo "Topping and Butch" in their song, "Please Don't Be Beastly to the Burglars".

Oh, and dataceptionist, I AM an American citizen, and I do support the right to keep and bear arms. I believe the right to self defence is as fundamental a human right as any.

[Yobbo]

I believe in the right to self-defence too James. It just happens that shooting a guy who is running away from you isn't self-defence.

I don't really know how many more times I can say it.

The Tony Martin case was much different to shooting someone in the back who was running away. And he only got 5 years, of which he served 3, not 20 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Martin_%28farmer%29

[Yobbo]

Actually, he did pretty much shoot someone in the back, heh.

His sentence was reduced to manslaughter because he was found to be mentally unstable at the time. Mostly because he'd been burgled so many times.

[steve at the pub]

Shooting crooks is not about self defence. It is about getting even, or about recoving stolen goods.

Though shooting someone dead for doing a runner on a taxi seems at face value to be over the top. The fallout from it would cost more than the fare which was owed.

[James]

Really Steve? If someone breaks into my house, how do I know they only intend to walk off with my TV and not do me or my family more serious harm?

The proportional response test for self defense vitiates a millenium of common law.

[Goldstein]

I am with James all the way, I mourn Australia's bizarre ambivalence re: self-defence. How/why did this country's citizens allow themselves to be banned from owning weapons for legitimate self-defence? Should a person in jeopardy really be compelled to weigh up "proportional response" when in the middle of being threatened or attacked by criminals?

Real example: My brother-in-law gets call from his neighbor that a couple of young men are in his equipment shed (country town, no resident cops). He calls cops in adjacent town, goes home, grabs single-barrel 12ga shotgun, confronts 2 men, early 20s.

They are young but experienced in crime, tell him if he shoots them he'll go to jail, blah blah, so he puts gun down... They bash him, fracture his skull, ribs, steal his car plus extra petrol, and tools, leave him unconscious in the driveway..

Me? I would have shot the c***suckers. "Better judged by 12 than carried by 6". Australia's politicians are well looked after, the rest of us are banned from owning any weapons for self-defence, even in your own home -no Rambo knives, no clubs, no swords any more -you might get a gun licence for "sport" or "hunting" or "target shooting" -NEVER for "self-defence" which should be your right... -and you can't even wear a bullet-proof vest here.. banned by the State governments, you have to apply for a permit and give "compelling" reasons as to why you need such protection... time to migrate to Alabama...