Claim's Cabbies Corner. Repo Revenge.

[Warren t claim]

One topic I've yet to cover on this thread is the question, what does it actually take to make it as a taxi driver?

The answers may surprise you.

As I've said on here many times before, this thread is really the edited high and low points that both myself and NNW have experienced over several decades. The average working week is usually nothing like the tales told here in earlier posts.

Q. Do you need to know every street in your area?
A. Back in the old days we did, but GPS has made that skill redundant.

Q. Do you have to be big and tough to drive a taxi?
A. No. Trouble is in reality a very rare occurrence. Some drivers bring trouble to themselves with their attitude. They attract trouble. I know several OAPs and lady drivers who work weekend nights with no trouble.

Q. Do you get many runners?
A. No. This is down to the office being proactive when it comes to insisting on money up front based on a passenger's trip history. Also if a driver uses his brain and learns the tell tale signs of something not being quite right, he'll be fine.

Q. Do you get many pissed passengers puking in your car?
A. No. In the three and a half years I had the Ioniq the only puker was an eight year old girl and her parents kept quiet about that. Running the floor mat under a petrol station tap made the problem go away. In reality, if someone is so pissed that they have to be carried to the car then they're not getting in at all!

Q. Have you ever been robbed?
A. No. I'm not saying that it can't happen but I've been lucky over the last twenty years.

Q. Do punters try and have sex on the back seat leaving you with a spunk stain to clean up?
A. No!

Q. How often do you pick up a passenger that really scares you?
A. Maybe three times a year.

Q. Do you get offered a shag in lieu of payment very often?
A. No. If a lady wants a shag she'll pay you first.

Q. But you do get loads of offers, don't you?
A. I did in my younger years but I'm in my 50s now!

Q. Can you make a decent living?
A. That depends on you. Nights pay better than days and once you have paid your bills every fare is pure profit. If you sit waiting for jobs to come to you then you'll fail. If you're willing to chase the work and run for fares then you'll do well.

Q. Do you carry pets?
A. Yes. I even keep some dog treats in the glovebox. Dogs are the perfect passengers. On the downside, there's nothing worse than taking a tearful pet owner and their beloved furbaby on their final ride to the vets. I'll NEVER charge for that run and offer to take them home for free to. I always keep wet wipes in the car to wipe their tears away.

[Warren t claim]

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/real-life/i ... wpsiTJU82E

Fuck no!

[Hooli]

Jesus she's the size of a fucking taxi, what's that pageant for, cattle?

[Warren t claim]

After two weeks the electric parking brake is starting to piss me off.

Clutch is heavy enough for me to crave an auto.

[DodgeRover]

Clutch is heavy enough for me to crave an auto.

It's a heritage feature sir

[BusmansHoliday]

Q. Do you have to be big and tough to drive a taxi?
A. No. Trouble is in reality a very rare occurrence. Some drivers bring trouble to themselves with their attitude. They attract trouble. I know several OAPs and lady drivers who work weekend nights with no trouble.

Interesting, our local PH taxi firm does not work after 5 on Friday and Saturday nights due to trouble. We have to ring the lot from Rotherham if you want a taxi. I suppose it says a lot for where I live.

[Warren t claim]

Q. Do you have to be big and tough to drive a taxi?
A. No. Trouble is in reality a very rare occurrence. Some drivers bring trouble to themselves with their attitude. They attract trouble. I know several OAPs and lady drivers who work weekend nights with no trouble.

Interesting, our local PH taxi firm does not work after 5 on Friday and Saturday nights due to trouble. We have to ring the lot from Rotherham if you want a taxi. I suppose it says a lot for where I live.

Worse than Merseyside? How is Aleppo these days?

[BusmansHoliday]

Generally not too bad, just a few knobs and an occasional* major infestation of the local 'spoons by the local caravan club. Don't know what actually caused the ban but I'm only a mile from the Rotherham checkpoint so not too much of a problem.

[Warren t claim]

A couple of interesting £30+ jobs over the last day.

First was a card job consisting of trio of 18 year olds, two girls and a lad, returning from an 18th birthday party at a bowling alley. The trip started off in silence for the first few minutes until one of the young ladies started to sing Chasing Pavements by Adele quietly on the back seat. To lighten the mood I started to stream the song over the radio loudly and then they all started to sing along happily. This was my cue to play DJ and after that, I worked my way through the Claim_Intendeds playlist following it up with Uptown Funk by Bruno Mars before finishing off with the Sia song Chandelier. Although all of these tunes were played at full volume their finest singing voices were clearly audible. At the end of the trip I was told that I was the best taxi driver they'd ever had and the young ladies insisted on giving me hugs and kisses, and as someone who prides himself on his quality customer services, I was happy to let them squeeze me. Both ladies had decent and firm tits. To my utter surprise, when I was checking my datahead later to monitor my earnings, I discovered that the young lady who was paying for the taxi on her card had tipped me a tenner! An unheard of amount from an 18 year old woman!

The next £30+ job couldn't have been more different. It was quiet on the set and I noticed a job appear in a zone appear and disappear a few times. This usually means two things. Either there's a house party going on and several people are booking taxis from the same address or, as was the case with this job, drivers were bidding for it but promptly throwing it back when they saw what the job was. This often is the case when it's an NHS hospital job paid at a reduced rate. As I'd had the above job I thought I'd help the oppo out my covering it. When the job arrived it seems that I was wrong. It was a job taking a scally who drivers had suffered problems with before and the job had notes attached saying MONEY UP FRONT and UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES TAKE PASSENGER IF HE APPEARS VIOLENT.

These sort of messages arouse my morbid curiosity on just how bad this person can be to acquire that reputation with our firm. You may be wondering why we don't blacklist people with such a bad reputation and the reason why we don't makes perfect sense. If we banned these people then they'd 'just buy a burner phone and SIM and probably book their taxi for an address a couple of doors away. This would leave any driver covering the job exposed to an unknown risk. We can't block an entire street based on the actions of one scumbag so it's better to take the job and let the driver either refuse it or know exactly what he's letting himself in for.

A minute after getting the job and not knocking it back, the oppo phones be warning yours truly to keep my doors locked until I've assessed him. As the job was going to the far end of Wirral over to Liverpool and potentially £30 for half an hour's work, I was up for the gamble. I arrive at his house and hit the callback button, simultaneously with the central locking button, to let him know I'm here. He walks out of his house alone, this is good news as if things did get lively then I didn't fancy my chances if I'm outnumbered. He walks to the NSF door of the Insignia and I let him in.

Once in I hit the meter and it beeps flashing up a reminder to get money up front. I tell him that I've no idea what he's done to reach the much coveted level of cash up front but if the office says so then I've got to ask. He pulls a was of notes out of his pocket and gives me £30 which I put under a rubber band on my sunvisor, I do this so the cash is clearly visible and the punter can't claim he'd given me £40.

We set off and five minutes later he asks me politely if he could open his window a bit. As he seemed to be behaving himself and coupled with the fact that I really don't care what a punter does as long as I get paid, I reply that as this is a £30 trip he can do whatever he wants, I don't care if he wants to spend the trip sniffing coke from his front door key. I'm not his dad, I'm just here to make a living. He bursts out laughing and pulls a 0.5 g bag of coke from his pocket along with his bank card and starts helping himself to a few bumps. He tells me that he wishes all taxi drivers were as chilled as me and offers me a pretty large helping of Class A from his bag! I explain to him that there's no way I'm risking a trip two ways through the Mersey Tunnel as that's the most likely place on Merseyside where I'd get swabbed by plod.

As we seem to be getting on famously I ask him what he'd done to earn such a bad reputation with our taxi firm. It turns out that some paki driver once took him on this very same trip and tried to charge him £42 for the journey. The Asian driver didn't even have his meter running to prove the fare either. When the lad refused to pay the paki locked him in his Prius refusing to let him out until he'd got the whole £42. The lad kicked off, slapping said paki chancer before escaping.

Far from being the trip from hell, we parted as friends and swapped phone numbers!

[mercrocker]

It's nice to be nice.....Never done cabs but I've had a few jobs where supposed "nutcases" were to be encountered and I never had a problem, personally, with any of them.