Answering The West Australian Editorial

The following is a letter to the West’s Editor following his editorial of the 7^th Feb, 2011 -

Dear Editor

Thank you for your commentary on the desperate condition of the taxi industry.   As a long term driver I am constantly told of poor taxi driver behaviour.   I distribute a handout to advise on how to catch taxis with some degree of safety.   I also distribute a handout to potential drivers listing reasons why they should seek employment elsewhere.   

Your statistics mention 1154 complaints against driver and 509 complaints of fare evasions.   I can assure you that neither statistic is representative of the real situation.   Another statistic that should be noted is the number of jobs we arrive for that aren’t there.   Of my first three radio jobs last night only one was there and I arrive at the pick-up point in less than 5 minutes in each instance.   

A major problem is drivers who don’t respond to radio jobs correctly.    Often I have sat on a rank waiting for work.   When I get a job I am told by the passenger that I was the second cab called.   Now both I and the passenger have wasted a considerable amount of time because the driver who was awarded the job the first time failed to pick up.   If I had that job I would have been making money and the passenger would have been delivered efficiently to their destination.   Instead both of us have been inconvenienced by the slackness of the first driver.

As for guaranteed bookings that would be nice but not possible.   Like most industries we do try to do the best we can to service the public’s needs but 100% is not possible.   Imagine an extreme situation; I book a taxi now for 2.00 am on the 1^st January for the corner of William and James St.   That is 11 months away so surely they have enough notice to provide for my request.   Now imagine if 2000 other taxi customers planning their New Year’s celebrations in Northbridge had the same idea.   Not really practical is it?   Where would the taxis wait and then half the customers would change their plans and not tell us.   If you tried this with a limousine they would want full payment at booking time and then say no when they ran out of limos.   With a taxi service the operator would say we will try our best and that is what many of us drivers do.

The practical purpose of booking is to inform drivers when a job is coming up at a time or location where we might not normally wait.   This is usually early in the morning.   During most of our shift as we drop off in an area we start looking for the next job.   At 3.00 am we aren’t  dropping off too many fares so bookings inform us where we should go to best satisfy customer demand.   Pre-booking is to help efficiency not guarantee it.   As it is, I often wait in areas in the early morning until after 4.00 am only to find there aren’t enough bookings.

Hal

PS.  

I will be one of the many drivers attending tomorrow’s summit even though it will take some effort as a night driver to wake up in time.

I have been preparing a blog over the past couple of days which I have advised the Minister of so he may get an idea of the difficulties in the industry.

You may access it at http://perthcabcrap.blogspot.com/