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If a distinguishing feature of taxi drivers is the automatic ability to maximise a fare, then I’m not your typical cabbie. Fare exploitation requires practise and confidence, plus a certain brassy insouciance when challenged. Yet some passengers are their own worst enemy, carelessly granting drivers free choice over the route.
The annual Sexpo circus hit town over the weekend at the Horden Pavilions. Or should I say, the health, sexuality and lifestyle show. Whatever it’s called, the exhibition is a commercial bonanza drawing huge crowds, and for those attending next year, a tip - according to one passenger the closing Sunday night session features reduced prices.
The best laugh by far came from some girls reporting on a latex face doll; a head moulded to resemble Brad Pitt, and designed for face-sitting fantasies. I kid you not.
As ridiculous as that sounds, I soon got to wondering, why Brad Pitt ? Surely patriotic Aussies girls would prefer, say, a horny Warnie face doll. Every girls dream, no ? Or a Peter Garrett model, with bonus chrome-dome ? Ahh, you've gotta laugh.
Speaking of the fairer sex, I had reason this morning to recall a recent passenger with a particular skill, seemingly innate in most females. No matter how drunk and legless a girl is, they can somehow walk in high heels. How can this be possible when the law of physics says otherwise ? Though it's no good asking stiletto devotee, Steph, who openly admits, 'I swear, I fart, I fall down a lot. To my mothers dismay, A lady I'm Not!'
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.
You know what I hate ? When it’s 1am on a dead shift and I haven’t spoken to anyone for nearly an hour. So I hop out of the cab and light a cigarette, hoping the damn rank might start moving. It’s either that or some friendly, distracting discourse.
The cabbie behind, also bored, gets out and approaches me. With a warm smile he asks, "Vu canna de wensrin..?" Then follows numerous attempts on my part in trying to comprehend utter gibberish. Finally he gives up, shrugs despondently and walks away.
I feel lousy because as hard as I tried he was impossible to understand, so imagine how dejected he feels. What should be a congenial chat between colleagues becomes an exercise in mutual embarrassment. An all too frequent condition amongst cabbies.
When I obtained my license a language tester actually said of immigrant drivers, "They’ll get the hang of the lingo once they’re on the road." He worked for the Adult Migrant Section of TAFE, on behalf of the taxi authority. "We call it reverse discrimination," he explained to me. "Because they’re from a minority culture we give them a break on the English test." Admittedly, that was ten years ago.
Of course it’s total bullshit. Unless immigrant drivers seriously study English they have little chance of becoming proficient, at least to a passable level of conversation with a majority of the population. Whilst these drivers may be able to correctly pronounce localities and fares, you can forget about an easy, relaxing chat. That's what I hate.
At 4am this morning whilst doing my paperwork at a local service station, a bloke suddenly appeared at the cab window. "Mate, are you starting or finishing ?" he asked. Though I was finishing work, I could've easily taken the fare. But in the split second needed to answer, something told me not to accept. So I didn't.
Years ago I came across a woman driving a car with the personal plate number, 666. When I inquired if she was worried by the negative connotations of such a number, she just laughed dismissively as if to say, it’s bullshit. Which is probably the best attitude.
However a San Francisco cabbie has had enough bad luck with his 666 plate and has petitioned authorities that it be changed. Trouble is, they've offered him a replacement number, 1307 ! Nice backhander.
Speaking of amusing number plates, here’s a taxi number I regularly see around town. It’s always reminds me of an infatuated Tim Blair commenter, 1.618. Let’s hope she never catches this small dog, barking from behind a bush.
After Sunday night when I couldn’t facilitate an outcome to save myself, now I’m pleased to report that last night I ticked all the boxes. I mean basically, I totally like did the business. So at the end of the day and going forward it’s all good. End of story, whatever.
If there is one time of the year when a cabbie gets depressed it’s winter, in particular Sunday nights in July. These are about as bad as it gets when a certain driver can’t be bothered starting work before 7pm, four hours into the shift. Thus I dragged myself off to work last night expecting only to make costs. Anything more would be a bonus.
When I produced a partial CabMap last Sunday week, a reader commented how it would be interesting to see a full-shift map. At the time I chuckled as no cabbie would be game to do so, unless it’s the worst shift of the year and certain to generate sympathy.
So, one week later I’m only too happy to map a whole shift, if only to indulge in some ‘poor-bugger-me’. For added interest here's the shift details and costs...
Of course I didn’t drive smart, making three trips to the Airport to score only two jobs, plus a wasted 30 minutes at Star City, plus dinner and coffee breaks. But thirty bucks is a bonus. Oh, wait, minus dinner ($10) and three coffees ($8) leaves...twelve bucks !
Still, I honoured my shift commitment and covered costs, which is what I set out to do. That's life in the cab game; heaven and hell. And if anyone thinks I'll ever produce a detailed account of a decent shift, forget it, we never have them, okay ?
TAXI authorities have condemned an Islamic recruiting drive by some of Melbourne's Muslim cabbies using propaganda-style DVDs featuring radical preacher Sheik Khalid Yasin.
This curious item appeared in Melbourne earlier in the week. Why, I wondered, would any cabbie with a modicum of self-preservation, a driver's first consideration, presume passengers would be interested in uplifting products like, Death...Your Time Is Up !
Talk about how to win friends and influence people. Moreover, such a dodgy marketing strategy is about as smart as those fundamentalist Christian preachers who descended on the Middle East after the second Gulf War. One imagines they didn’t last very long.
An indicator of the diminishing rate of conversions to Islam is telling...
"In the past 10 years, the ITI has delivered more than 5000 persons to Islam and an additional 1476 since the September 11 attacks," the DVDs say.
Assuming the statement is current, this reads as approximately 881 annual conversions pre 9/11, and only 246 annual conversions post 9/11. Hence, one guesses, the cabbies' recruiting drive.
Whilst taxis can be considered an ideal space to promote causes or flog products, I struggle to remember other examples of entrepreneurial cabbies. The only ones I’ve heard of are drivers selling cleaning products through multi-level marketing deals, plus those taxi decals advertising the Chinese religion/philosophy, Falun Dafa.
Which reminds me, I must order some Cablog business cards.
If there’s one thing cabbies have, it’s plenty of time to reminisce. A couple of encounters last night took me back to the time my son, Aaron was born.
Early in the evening a fella boarded at the Airport, having just flown back from Wagga. Or, as he called it, "Wagga Wagga." He reported the weather had been bitterly cold, wet and windy..."too windy to even use an umbrella." Thirty years ago I’d spent a winter in the district and thought, yep, that’s about as bad as it gets down there in Wagga.
Much later in Bondi a young fella hailed me for a local brothel. "It’s my birthday," he drunkenly announced, "so I’m shouting myself a root." As you do. "How much ?" I asked, keen to compare prices to that of inner City brothels. "Aww, I dunno," he said. After telling him it was around $300 per hour in town, he laughed, "Well, I’ll just be going the half-hour, that’s if I can get it up after all the piss I’ve drunk."
The young bloke was 25 years old today, a minor milestone of sorts. Which, once again, had me thinking of my son’s milestone: 30 years old this week. Such an occasion gives a parent pause for thought and I spent the next few hours recalling the circumstances of the occasion.
At the time I was surveying cables for Telecom down in the Hume district, east of Wagga, an easy hours drive away. Due to the transient nature of the job my wife elected to relocate from our Bondi home to her home town of Wagga for the impending birth. This allowed me to travel back to Wagga each night, breaking land speed records gunnin’ an F100 V8 along the deserted back roads from Tumbarumba.
Aaron arrived on time in the picaninny dawn with a minimum of fuss. Though in trying to be all ‘new agey’ about the event, I got jelly legs at the crucial moment and had to be helped to the waiting room. Sheesh. Whilst I have no problem responding to horror road accidents, clearing away blood to locate a victim’s pulse, put me in a birth theatre with gleaming scalpels and calculated incisions and I go all flaky. Hopeless.
Anyway, these memories triggered by my passenger encounters were predominant during last night’s shift. Distant memories vividly restored by the magic of birth. Though, of course, the real magic belongs to Aaron’s mother who did all the hard work in giving life to our truly wonderful son. Thanks Mum; happy birthday, mate.
A related emotion last night invoked some of the music of the era and the radio hits I listened to on those long commutes back to Wagga. And thanks to YouTube I’ve found an old favourite from 1977, weirdly updated to 2007 (sorry Sid).
Welcome to Adrian Neylan's blog of Sydney taxi stories.
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