Luck

Like most jobs taxi driving has its moments of luck, usually the result of preparation and perserverance rather than simply slacking around.

At midnight last night I stopped for dinner reasonably happy with the shift till then. As you can imagine Tuesdays in winter are usually the quietest nights of the year but I’d jagged a meaty fare to the North Shore just after 10pm, the start of the night rate.

The passenger, a young office woman sat up front and talked like a threshing machine. She’d been out celebrating a business deal and launched into a tale involving sex, drugs, affairs and betrayal.

At regular intervals she grabbed my forearm to emphasise a point, but I didn’t worry about it, she was a demonstrative girl. When a phone call to her married lover failed to entice him out, I was ordered on to her house. There, a bloke stood on the verandah smoking. “That’s my boyfriend,” she squealed, “wave to him. Want to come in for a drink, other drivers do.” Pass.

After dinner I camped on a favourite rank waiting for the evening shift. During the late afternoon I’d spotted an employee who lived in the Shire and figured there was an outside chance of scoring a $60 fare. This would make my night and allow for an early mark home. As luck would have it, I got him.

However rather than turn for home after dropping him, I decided to head back to the city for another hour or so. Maybe it was the sight of empty cabs leaving the city which inspired me but I just felt lucky.

Sure enough, arriving in Redfern around 1:30am I was offered a radio job to Fairfield, out in the western suburbs. The only trouble being the pick-up on Bourke Street, Waterloo was questionable. It would be either heaven or hell and after nearly rejecting it as too risky my intuition took over and I accepted the job.

When the details showed two passengers in a male name I started to panic until arriving at the address to find two businessmen in suits hailing a passing cab. I quickly put a stop to that, they were mine!

Two lamb kebabs and $100 later I rolled into Fairfield well pleased, especially after doing a hard speed limit past a concealed police car on Parramatta Road.

Call me lucky, it was that sort of night.

Comments

[AG Canberra]

You sound like a gambler Adrian - just one more fare and I'll hit the jackpot. And occassionally even gamblers have good nights....

[Stefano R]

A fairly portly gambler, I'd say, if two kebabs are disposed of regularly. ;-)

[adrian]

Touché, AG!
Sorry, Stefano, but this was a rushed post. The kebabs were for the passengers, with the stop adding $20 to the fare.

[crjc]

A $20 stop for kebabs sounds pretty nice. I'm now 7 hours into my shift and I've had one $7 fare, all of which I have spent on coffees while sitting around.

The Town of Ladysmith has decided to offer a new bus service, free of charge. Taxes are way up and my sales have fallen off a cliff. Bastards. Down with public transit!

[Rainer the cabbie]

crjc
The Taxi God does not expect anyone to work for $1,-- an hour. Finish your shift, see your neighbour for some Bud-weiser and tomorrow go to the unemployment office for some retraining as a bus driver.

[manly cabbie]

one $7 job in seven hours,time to take rainers advice.

[adrian]

Hey, crjc, I thought Ladysmith sounded familiar as I've twice visited Vancouver Island.

One time in the early eighties I stayed on Hornby Island with some ferals who survived hunting deer, panning for gold, harvesting magic mushrooms and digging clams.

Think I'd prefer the cab. Is it true Ladysmith has only four cabs?

[Walter]

yeah, sometimes a shift could be as good as Adrian's or as bad as crjc's shift. You never know. It was that uncertainty that drove me into a wage job.

[crjc]

We have four taxi plates, and our service area includes Ladysmith. There is always one and often two drivers on at once, plus a backup driver on call. We usually have three cars running and one in for an overhaul of some sort.

There is another cab company which operates in Ladysmith only, and they have two plates. They started about two years ago -- our only direct competitor. They are only allowed to operate within town limits.

Our Ladysmith driver quit, and after he left all our drivers were living in Chemainus, 12-15 minutes south of Ladysmith. Slow response times were killing us. We got a reputation for showing up no less than 20 minutes after receiving a call -- this after the boss caught us passing fares we couldn't reach in time to the competition and put a stop to it.

I convinced the boss to give me the best car -- his 2004 LTI TXII London Cab -- and put me in Ladysmith. I built it up from ~$20/day in my first week to ~$120/day the week before the public transit fired up.

The trolly runs 8am-6pm. Same hours as I do. Things are picking up again as the novelty wears off and the "benefits" of waiting for public transit become more apparent to the citizenry. I pray daily for rain, and its not because half the province is on fire. ;)

We have found a new bloke who lives in Ladysmith. Retired fellow, clean, has a well kept garage and well maintained vehicle. I've been training him to take over the Ladysmith day shift. There won't always be enough money in the day shift to sustain a driver who has to live on the income, but there is enough for a retired fellow to make a few extra dollars sitting at home "on call". Like him, I have other income.

My taxi money is going into the perfect BC winter taxi -- a rebuilt 1987 Hyundai Pony with "pizza cutter" snow tires, a roll bar, and a winch. It's a 64HP $300 piece of junk but it's brilliant on ice and can handle up to 12" of snow.

As you might have guessed, I'm in it for the cars, and the driving, and the people I meet. I love the job.

I was wrong about the taxes. The trolley has not (yet) cost the taxpayers anything. The vehicle was donated.

[crjc]

Bloody hell. Put the new guy on in Ladysmith and he immediately gets a $400+ run to Victoria and back. Good. Now we've got the new guy firmly hooked on "luck". Hopefully he'll stick around even through the dollar an hour days.