Another Joke

I heard this on the radio in the cab tonight and just had to share.

A broken leg is lying in the road and an arm goes screaming past.
The arm comes back and asks, "Need a hand?"
"No thanks" is the reply
"I'm waiting for a toe!"

Halloween Humor

A cabbie picks up a Nun. She gets into the cab,
and the cab driver won't stop staring at her.

She asks him why is he staring. He replies, "I
have a question to ask you, but I don't want to
offend you."

She answers, "My son, you cannot offend me.
When you're as old as I am and have been a Nun
as long as I have, you get a chance to see and
hear just about everything. I'm sure that there's
nothing you could say or ask that I would find
offensive."

"Well, I've always had a fantasy to have a Nun
kiss me."

She responds, "Well, let's see what we can do
about that: #1, you have to be single and
#2, you must be Catholic."

The cab driver is very excited and says, "Yes,
I am single and I'm Catholic!"

"OK" the Nun says. "Pull into the next alley."
The Nun fulfills his fantasy with a kiss that
would make a hooker blush. But when they get back
on the road, the cab driver starts crying.

"My dear child, said the nun, why are you crying?"

"Forgive me but I've sinned. I lied. I must confess,
I'm married and I'm Jewish."

The nun says, "That's OK, my name is Kevin and
I'm going to a Halloween party."

ABC Taxis stuff up again

Following on from my previous post Wait Awhile I took a job tonight and when the customer got in he mentioned he was afraid he was going to miss his plane. It turns out he had rang ABC Taxis initially and after waiting 30mins had rung them back only to be informed they didn't have a taxi in the area. So he rang Goliath Taxis and was now finally on his way to the airport.

The problem was he had called the cab 1hr 45mins before take off. It should have been plenty of time right? By the time he got the brush off from ABC Taxis, called Goliath and I got there (I was 20 mins away) he was tight for time. I got him to the terminal just 30mins before take off and he still had to check in, get his ticket and make the gate before they closed it.

This had got to stop. His only mistake was calling the wrong cab company. I read today that Goliath has 84% market share leaving just 16% to ABC Taxis is it any wonder they can't cover the work? An hour and three quarters is plenty of time to call a cab and get from his house to the terminal and checked in etc with no stress. Instead the experience left him a bundle of nerves and as far from the relaxed traveler as you can get.

Do you think he will call them again?? Do you think the next time he needs to be on time for a flight he will call a cab?? Any cab? Not likely, he will ask a mate or family member for a lift then not just ABC Taxis but the entire taxi industry will lose out.

Something has to be done.

Fare Increase

It was announced tonight that as of next Saturday we will recieve a fare increase of just over 4%.

Working it out on the 4.7% they got on the east coast (Either Qld or Vic I can't remember) our new flagfall will be $3.40/$4.80 days/nights with the kilometer rate increased to $1.35 currently they are $3.20/$4.60 and $1.29 respectively. There will also be a $2 surcharge payable on any fare between 11pm and 5am on Friday and Saturday nights to encourage drivers to work the peak demand times.

Update: It turns out we are getting 4.45% starting on the 2nd Dec

Update: The call out fee has also increased from $1 to $1.50

Link: Article about fare increase on TheWest.com.au

Link: New Taxi Fare Structure on the DPI website.

The Perfect Man:

A man walks into the street and manages to get a taxi just going by.
He gets into the taxi, and the Cabbie says, "Perfect timing, You're just like Frank!"

Passenger: "Who?"
Cabbie: "Frank Feldman. He's a guy who did everything right all the time. Like my coming along when you needed a cab, things happened like that to Frank Feldman every single time."

Passenger: "There are always a few clouds over everybody."
Cabbie: "Not Frank Feldman. He was a terrific athlete. He could have won the Grand-Slam at tennis. He could golf with the pros. He sang like an opera baritone and danced like a Broadway star and you should have heard him play the piano. He was an amazing guy! "

Passenger: "Sounds like he was something really special."
Cabbie: "There's more. He had a memory like a computer. He could remember everybody's birthday. He knew all about wine, which foods to order and which fork to eat them with. He could fix anything. Not like me. I change a fuse, and the whole street blacks out. But Frank Feldman, he could do everything right."

Passenger: "Wow, some guy then."
Cabbie: "He always knew the quickest way to go in traffic and avoid traffic jams, not like me, I always seem to get stuck in them. But Frank, he never made a mistake."

Passenger: "Mmm, there's not many like him around."
Cabbie: "And he really knew how to treat a woman and make her feel good and never answer her back even if she was in the wrong; and his clothing was always immaculate, shoes highly polished too - he was the perfect man! He never made a mistake. No one could ever measure up to Frank Feldman."

Passenger: "An amazing fellow. How did you meet him?"
Cabbie: "Well, I never actually met Frank "

Passenger: "Then how do you know so much about him?"
Cabbie: "I married his widow."

I like Red Bull

Wow that was a big night. The estimate I heard was 300,000 people turned out for the event some getting to the South Perth foreshore as early as 5am!

There's a story here from news.com.au

As for me I was blown away by the size of it all. The work was solid from midday when I started thru to 5pm when I stopped for dinner. In fact I ended up only working 12 hours (I had the cab for 17) and had my best shift yet.

I can't wait for next year.

Red Bull Air Race

The Red Bull Air Race is on today in Perth. To be honest I've never heard of it before and don't really know what to expect. I do however know an opportunity when I see one and when I heard the organisers saying they expect next years crowd to exceed the crowd we get each year for the Australia day SkyShow I thought maybe it would be worth the effort to start early.

So I'm going in today at 12pm instead of 5pm like normal. Not really sure what to expect but with a large crowd of people in the city and free transport on the buses and trains bringing them in to the city hopefully they will mean increased demand for taxis as well.

I'll post up how it goes tomorrow.

Hi, How's things??

I often get comment from passengers about how happy and full of beans I seem to be regardless of the time of night. In the early hours of the morning when they are feeling lethargic and thinking of bed I invariably greet them with a warm, friendly "Hi, How's things??" before they've even made eye contact with me as they're getting in". The funny thing is it started as a safety related thing and has now just become a habit.

What has a bright cherry greeting at 3 in the morning got to do with safety you ask??. Well I was speaking to a few driver mates a while back and we agreed that an effective way of dealing with difficult passengers before anything could actually happen was to come across as their mate. I mean if someone calls a cab with the intent on robbing the driver or roughing him up a bit and when the cab gets there they're greeted with a hearty "Hi, how's things??" then as they're shutting the door and clicking the seatbelt into place I'm asking "How was your night??" at this point nothings been said about the taxi fare or where they want to go. Only once we've had this little exchange do I ask "Where would you like to go??".

Think about it. By the time someone has said hello and given me a brief comment on their night out I have had time to get a feel on how the fare is going to pan out and if I need to be on my guard or not. I've also established a rapport with them and often with the good passengers, we have a enjoyable cab ride chatting like old friends.

Like I said it started as a safety issue trying to catch the difficult ones off guard and now has just become a habit. One I find makes driving a cab more enjoyable as instead of driving people home in silence I am often left wishing the trip had been longer as the conversation was so good. People remember too and when I get repeat business I'm often amazed when people ask me how's the kids or did I manage to sort so and so. It's makes the shift go quicker too.

Sometimes you fluke it

After posting about how difficult it was Saturday night to get a run going and consistently find the bigger jobs I felt I just had to tell you what happened last night.

It started when I checked my post office box and a customer who I had carried nearly a month ago and at the time hadn't paid, had actually sent me the fare. I mean I know I gave the lady my mailing address but I never really believed I would ever see the money so it was a nice surprise to get the letter.

At the time I had logged off the MDT and was intending on having an early night but after the nice surprise in my mailbox I decided I would head back into the city and see what was around.

I logged back in and made myself available and no more than 30 secs after doing so I scored a medical parcel job. Normally the ones I get are fairly small Perth to Mt Lawley or Nedlands etc $15 max. Not this time thou, I was headed to Joondalup Hospital some $47 away.

Btw the time I dropped and got back on the freeway there wasn't enough time to get another job before I really had to change over but seeing how the morning had gone that was fine with me.

Sat night

There must be an art to working these busy nights. An art that I have apparently forgotten. I filled in last night for the regular driver as he had to study for uni exams and to put it simply my take for the night was roughly what I would have expected for a Sat night 5 or 6 years ago not 6 or so weeks out from xmas in 2006!.

The work was going gangbusters for the first 2hrs and then I hit the small fares. I got a hail for $6.00 a job off the computer from Mt Lawley to Northbridge that was only $9 things like this. Then later in the night I spent a whole hour for the princely sum of $11 the rest of the time I was chasing jobs that weren't there.

You have to expect these things of course but the most annoying part was the huge volume of work that was there and I just lucked out time and again with either small fares, time wasters or no-jobs.

Less is more

I worked last night as the regular driver had the night off to prepare for uni exams.

I picked up a couple last night the lady making reference to the level of undress amongst the women that were out. Her comment was haven't they heard of the phrase "Less is More"

I couldn't help myself and had to reply "For sure, The less they wear the more we look" lol.

She just groaned "Thats not what I meant"

What do you think?

I was faced with a decision this morning and I think I made the wrong one.

I was plotted rank on the Sheraton Hotel waiting for a timed booking when the GPS gave me a job at the Duxton Hotel about a block away. It was for room 1203 @ 4am to the domestic airport.

I get to the hotel and go inside to let reception know I am there and who for etc. Well he tells me the pax has just walked out to the (other) taxi waiting outside, I run outside and call to the customer "Rm 1203 sir?? Your taxi is over here."

At this point the driver of the other taxi approaches me and explains he has been waiting with the gentleman's bags in his boot for the past 5 minutes. I point out that I have the job on my taxi dispatch computer and the other driver hasn't switched his meter on which I can tell because the flee light on the roof is still lit up.

I ended up taking the customer.

Part of the problem was the time of day the situation occurred. My change over time is 5am. It's a 15 minute drive from the city to the airport and I need to leave the airport by 4.20am to have time to fuel up and drive to change over. So had I missed out on the fare I would have most likely not got anything remembering I was sitting on a booking at the Sheraton before all this started.

I think had it been earlier in the night and had I not been so tight for time I would have let the guy take the job and in hindsight that may have been the right thing to do in this case as well.

What would you have done??

I got lucky last night

Someone thru a bottle at my cab from a pedestrian overpass something that until last night I had only heard about thru messages on the dispatch computer warning us to be careful. As my customer so kindly pointed out it could have been a rock, they could have been a better shot too and then instead of the bottle smashing harmlessly on the road just inches in front of me, well you know what could have happened.

I dropped my pax and contacted base to let them know what had happened and asked them to inform the police. Not that I even saw who it was but if they don't know then nothing will change.

Safe Driving.

The Halloween that wasn't

It was Halloween last night and to be honest it was a non event. Tuesday nights in Perth are generally my worst night of the week and last night was no exception.

It just isn't the big deal here that it is in other parts of the world. There may be some celebration planned for the weekend but that will be more of an excuse to get dressed up and drink too much than anything specifically to do with Halloween.

The origins of Halloween sometimes also called Samhain.

This was in total contrast to the past 2 nights which were brilliant to say the least I can only hope the last 2 nights of the week are as profitable for me. (I work Sunday thru Thursday nights)

Safe driving.