Frontline

Cablog reader and Sydney cabbie, Rainer, sends a harrowing tale from the frontline,

Hi readers.

I know you enjoy Adrian's stories but tonight I feel compelled to tell one myself. Stuff like this happens to cabbies all the time and I would like you to know what the average taxi driver has to put up with trying to make a living.

Last night I was driving down Balmain Rd in Leichhardt at 11.50 pm, with my nice passenger Tom, who is very tired from a big week and looking forward to a good night sleep.

As we approach a speed hump near Moore Street I see a group of about 10 young punks, aged 13 to 15 standing on both sides of the road, rushing towards me as I slow down. The feeling in the back of my neck tells me that something is about to happen

Soon enough I see two fellows on the left rushing towards the cab and throwing stones at the windscreen. What escapes me is the other 3 on the right who carry and throw a 5 foot garden fence [metal] into the windscreen, which wraps itself around the roof sign after showering Tom and myself in glass.

As I slowed down I looked in the rear view mirror which showed 10 kids rushing towards me, and I realised Tom and myself would be dead meat if they caught us. So I gunned it looking through the holes in my windscreen.

Tom certainly was awake by now, showered in safety glass like me, but fortunately for him not bleeding from tiny cuts like myself.

Now I don't want to play the harp here, but I'd rather tell you people and let off some steam and keep it quiet from my wife who would get upset and worry every time I said goodbye to her after dinner.

Unfortunately stuff like this happens to other cabbies on a regular basis, including abuse, racist slurs and fare evaders. And most of us are the working poor. Show me the cabbie who heard of superannuation or private health insurance and I show you an owner, not a driver.

But then, as the old cabbie whom I met soon after said to me, shit happens. Sadly for most cabbies, it happens all too often. Yet on a daily basis I hear what bastards taxi drivers are and I wonder why.

Rainer the cabbie

Comments

[Perry]

This story makes me very glad that I drive taxis in the country. The most aggresion that I have witnessed since I've been driving is a rabid cockatoo that just missed my windscreen but smashed my roof sign out on a country road.
If the stories in the newspapers are right and metro drivers are only earning $10 an hour, then I earn an extremely good income as well.
I live in a town of 8,000 people with 2 hotels about 10 cafes a licenced club amongst very social and freindly people. I rent a 3 bedroom house in a good part of town for $150 a week and life is sweet.
Because of my job I know most of the people in town and so I have a great social life as well. My kids ride their bikes to the local school every day with no fear and on weekends play sport for the local footy and netball teams.
I think I have found taxi driver heaven.

[GP]

Thanks for posting that.

Yours might be the most unfairly maligned profession going around. The mind boggles that anyone would have to put up with crap like this.

[brian]

Who slows down for for a speed hump?

[Rainer the cabbie]

Never mind the last comment, I actually wasted some time to check his blog. Brian, some people are good at driving, some at blogging, and occasionaly you get the right combination, like Adrian. Keep driving Brian.

[Liam Dempsey]

How do some people decide that they have the 'right' to intrude so violently on other people's lives? I was glad to read that you got out of that without serious injury. What a story ...

[Dataceptionist]

Thats so awful. Glad to hear you're ok.
I'm gobsmacked that kids would find that fun.

[manly cabbie]

same thing happened to me outside a pub in east sydney once i had 3 passengers in the taxi at the time and i truely felt for there safety thing is if i just floored it and hurt any of these kids bashing the taxi guess who goes to jail thats right me the scum bag taxi driver as the media likes to refer to cabbies as.perry i also do shifts in the country and sometimes late saturday nite is as bad as it is in the city.

[perry]

manly cabbie, if you are refering to The Central Coast as country then you are way out. The Central Coat is just Mount Druitt in a designer dress.
Country is a small town where you know and are known by most of your passengers.

[badboybilly]

I drove cabs on the Central Coast in 1999 and i agree its Mount Druitt by the sea".
A lot runners in Berkeley Vale etc.

I was reading on the NSW Tai Council website that the most dangerous district for cab drivers is actually Wollongong,then Sydney and then Newcastle.

[Peter]

Reading this story reminds me of an incident that happened to me a few months ago.

I was on my own driving down Forbes Street near the corner of Cathedral Street in Woolloomoolloo around midnight when I suddenly noticed a group of about 20 youths in the middle of the road running towards the cab. There wasn't enough room to do a U turn and as you would imagine, I started to feel very nervous and was on the verge of hitting the M13 button.

I had been having trouble with the gas all evening and then as if by a miracle, just as I got under the railway overpass, the engine backfired making an enormous bang. The echo must have sounded like a gunshot as within seconds, the youths dispersed in all directions and I continued on without further incident.

Nevertheless, from then on, I have always tried and avoid that area late at night.

[manly cabbie]

perry no its not the central coast but the far south coast,and yes day shifts are very nice most of the jobs are from regular passengers and yes they all know your name,but come late saturday nite and its just like sydney with pissed young dickheads causing you grief ie runners(i lot more than i ever get in sydney)trashing the cab even had 1 drop his pants and drop a you know what in the back of a maxi i drove so for me i dont drive the maxi any more.

[Kim]

I live in that area and it may well be the kids from the Orange Grove estate. They are little you-know-whats and will think of nothing at harrassing and intimidating people on public transport, keying cars and hunting in packs. They are really, really scary and I feel bad that this happened to you.