Christmas Spirit and solution

Christmas Spirit and solution

Further to Miranda’s Xmas and Taxis below, we must be mindful that Sydney taxis are vacant most of the time. Only occasionally, taxis become busy and then only for a few very short periods. It is neither economical nor feasible to organise a few thousand taxis and taxi drivers for those very short periods. It is much more viable and economic to have more trains and busses to cater those infrequent rush hours.

Traditionally, taxi driver bashing by some sections of the media was a solution. Unfortunately, this type of buck passing failed to solve any problems. Therefore, we propose to share the blame together and educate the public to be more co-operative, patient and share taxis to speed up the traffic.

Christmas is held out throughout the civilized world as being the season of goodwill. Well, we think that a little good will extended to Sydney’s much maligned cabbies wouldn’t go astray either. Most workers in hospitality enjoy lucrative penalty rates over the silly season. Not so your toiling cabbie!

Restaurant patrons and hotel guests all accept a surcharge on their big night out yet somehow expect to get home in a cab when the fun is over at standard rates. Suffer the poor cabbie! Whilst cabbies get told to stagger their shifts a better solution would be to stagger Christmas! Only then would all those patrons get the service they desire. If, however, they are allowed to celebrate the silly season simultaneously then they MUST accept that they can’t all go home at the same time with no delay.

When those patrons tell their cabbie “I hope that you are getting paid double time for doing this” and hear the response “Well that’s up to you” it is no wonder that a great number of cabbies opt to avoid the madding crowd and take the night off too. What’s in it for the cabbie? A tirade of abuse from patrons urged to hate cabbies by the hysterical media; a back seat full of pizza and six packs. Not to mention all the time off the road in the weeks following if some drunk has collected the taxi with their poorly piloted missiles.

Faruque Ahmed
Secretary
NSW Taxi Drivers Association
Mobile: 0431 585 944 or 0432 665 822
November 4, 2009

NSW TAXI DRIVERS ASSOCIATIONFOR BAILEE DRIVERS, OWNER DRIVERS AND LESSEE DRIVERSInc. No. 9882558 ABN: 98 653 928 763
PO Box 322, Alexandria NSW 2015

Mobile: 0431 585 944 or 0432 665 822
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nswtdaforum

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Media ReleaseMiranda’s Xmas and Taxis

Miranda has put her elegant finger squarely on the problem of taxis at Xmas (SMH 8Nov07). Each year in November and December it becomes increasingly impossible for office and Xmas party goers to get a taxi home late into the night.This is despite most taxis working flat out those months to make up for their paltry earnings during the year, when too many taxis are idle. The Xmas taxi problems are a major issue for the NSW Taxi Drivers Association which is concerned about driver earnings as much as taxi services to passengers whence drivers derive their earnings.

The problem at Xmas is that taxis can generally carry only take 4 persons per cab. Unfortunately, two or 3 times as many cabs or "gypsy" cabs are a Miranda mirage, idle the rest of the year. In any event they could still not carry the Xmas crowds. The millions of Xmas revelers that arrive by trains and buses during the day, can only get home if those trains and buses are running to get them home again late at night.

And there Miranda lies the answer. Trains and buses must run until 4am during the Xmas season to get people home. Then the taxis can cope with the "mopping up" and the other fares.

Faruque Ahmed
Media Manager
Mobile: 041 091 4118, Email: union_faruque@yahoo.com.au