Helping out

Tonight was a good example of cabbies keeping an eye out for each other. Not because we are mates, to be honest I've never met either of the drivers before and seeing as I didn't get there cab numbers I most likely wont remember them if we ever meet in the future. But that didn't matter because for a few minutes out of our night we were all focused on the same thing. Helping another driver.

I was heading into the city from northbridge with another cab in front of me and as we rounded the corner from James st into William st he slows. My first reaction is to change lanes and keep going. But then something catches my eye and I slow too. A cab is pulled over to the curb and the driver is out of the car having a heated discussion with a woman passenger.

The cab in front of me stops and I stop next to him effectively blocking the road not that I gave it much thought. Now I never did find out what caused the whole scenario to get out of hand but the driver had obviously had enough and decided to terminate the hiring read chuck the couple out. The woman's boyfriend was still inside the cab.

The police drove down Roe st at the same time and seeing the situation they pulled over to keep an eye on proceedings although they never did get out of their car and they never got involved. They were

The 1st driver to stop tells the couple to get out of the taxi they wont be going any further and surprisingly with very little resistance other than a lot of shouting they do get out. Then the cabbie still incensed by whats happened wants to continue the argument and I have to tell him several times to just get in his cab and drive away before he actually does.

By this time we have been there maybe 3 minutes total, the couple walk off still shouting as their cab drives off and the 2 of us go back to our cabs and leave.

Just 3 minutes out of a 12 hour shift spent making sure things didn't get out of control. I've lost count of the times I have slowed either on a back street or on the freeway to check on another driver 99% of the time he is checking his road map or making a phone call. Just occasionally he might be having some trouble like tonight and having another driver there can make all the difference and things get sorted out with a minimum of fuss.

Just another night on the road.