He couldn't hack driving a cab in Boston
By adamg - 5/25/09 - 10:02 pm
... "Cab Ten-Twenty-One, do you know where you are? The customer is waiting!"
This must be 1021's first night on the job. After getting hired, all newbies are supposed to ride around with an experienced driver for a couple nights in order to learn the ropes. But it seems 1021 either lied, telling the owner he already had experience, or that somehow he fell through the cracks and was inadvertently sent out onto the streets cold. That or he is just a really, really slow learner.
"Cab Ten-Twenty-One, do you have a GPS?... Yes? Well, USE IT!" ...
Comments
Glad I Wasn't Waiting on Him
I understand it's tough to drive around Boston, but driving a cab is a job. Just because the city doesn't make the drivers memorize a map of town doesn't mean they shouldn't. Cab fares in this city are insanely high. When it costs $20 to go 5 miles, I sure don't want my driver getting lost, inevitably lying to me about it, and then shrugging when the meter reads $35, like it wasn't his fault, it's just what the meter says. On top of all this, I live in Boston proper and every time I get a cab at the airport, the first half of the trip is almost always the driver complaining about the trip not being long enough. I'm terribly sorry I don't live farther away... now why am I tipping you?
I used to get (and obviously still get) worked up about the whole issue. Now I own a scooter that I picked up from craigslist. It costs me between $1.50 and $2.50 to fill up and go 100 miles at a time. I wear safety gear, but even if I were riding half-flat tires with no helmet and bare feet I think I'd be safer than in an aging crown vic with the engine light on and a driver talking on his cell phone while messing with the GPS and that cab computer thing all while steering with his elbow into the wrong exit from the tunnel.
All that said, when I used to rely on Metrocab to get me to and from the airport each week for a consulting gig, they were always at my door within 5 minutes of the scheduled time (except once when there was about a foot and a half of snow. I actually gave up on waiting, started walking to the T, and found my would-be driver stuck in the snow about 2 blocks from my apartment. I helped push him off the ice, and made it to the airport just in time). Not all cab drivers are bad, I just don't feel very sorry for the ones that cry "it's too hard to learn the roads!"
boo-hoo-hoo
London requires all its cabbies to have memorized routes and pass a test. It's high time we did so here too.
Let's also drop this bullshit with medallions, cut the crap with forced rates, eliminate the bullshit of letting cabbies charge for time the cab, and ban leasing of cabs and the use of shell companies.
Is there any cesspool of humanity worse than Boston cabbies? Yes...the guys who own the cabs and medallions...
Been There, Done Too Much Of That
I drove cab for about six months, some 30+ years ago.
I had fares run out on me without paying; got called to pick up fares that didn't exist except in the mind of the prankster who called the dispatcher; had my cab half-totaled by a dope running a stop sign in Southie while driving a stolen vehicle; had another asswipe stop in front of me and then back up, deliberately, to hit me, he then taking off into the projects (the idea, I suppose, was that I'd follow him in there - yeah, right, I fell off the turnip truck just yesterday); and also had many occasions where people gave me directions, I followed them, and then when we got lost, blamed ME for it.
Other than that, it was a blast. Believe me, it's no easy way to earn a living.
Should there be better licensing requirements? Yup. But, if you expect people to study up and invest the time, as they do in London to gain The Knowledge, then you have to expect them to be remunerated accordingly. To my way of thinking, that would mean a raise in the already somewhat-high rates.
Your mileage - at 40 cents per 1/7 of a mile - may vary.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com