rank taxi?

Why Australian taxis are rank

Look, I know it's often a thankless task. The hours are crook and the work is repetitive. The pay is often poor and the stress levels high. But seriously, our taxi industry isn't exactly doing itself any favours right now. Look, I know it's often a thankless task. The hours are crook and the work is repetitive. The pay is often poor and the stress levels high. I know that those who do it for a living routinely see humanity from its least flattering angle. And let's not forget for a moment that it's an extremely dangerous way to put bread on the table. But seriously, our taxi industry isn't exactly doing itself any favours right now. Or maybe I've just had a bad run. But I don't think so. In a single week, I've been inconvenienced and put in personal danger several times by taxi drivers and companies, and I'm about ready to start banging heads together.
The inconvenience was the least life-threatening situation, but it still meant I almost missed a flight for which I had one of those el cheapo, non-refundable fares. The sort of you-don't-turn-up-you-do-your-dough arrangement that airlines (and don't start me there, either) have embraced. Having booked a cab 90 minutes earlier, the agreed time came and went with no (Melbourne) yellow sedan arriving to leak oil on my driveway.
So I phoned back 10 minutes later, only to be told that no driver had accepted my fare (an easy $120, I should add) and possibly none would. This would be bad enough, but why hadn't anybody phoned me back to tell me so? The dispatchers knew I was heading to the airport, after all. I hung up, threw my bags and significant other into the car and we drove to the airport (a three-hour round trip that Mrs M could clearly have done without on a wet Sunday evening).
A full 45 minutes after, the dispatcher rang me back, wondering where I was because the taxi was now in my driveway and couldn't find me. I'll spare you the full version of my reply. Suffice to say that if he'd followed my instructions he'd still be walking with a limp and the company would be down one yellow Ford Falcon. The dangerous stuff started to happen that same week when I pulled up at the lights in my own car. Right next to me was a cab with, in the right-hand-front wheel arch, a space-saver spare tyre. Now, you and I know, a space-saver is for emergencies only and you should use it only to get you to a tyre shop to have the flat fixed.
Not this bloke. Judging by the amount of road grime and brake dust on the space-saver, it'd been on that cab for at least a few days. Maybe more. A panic stop or wet patch on the road and he'd be crossing lanes and bouncing off whatever car was next to him. That'd be me, then.
But it got worse. Not more than a couple of days later, I jumped in the front seat of a taxi while my mate in the back seat suggested I look up, directly above my forehead. But do it slowly. No sudden movements. And there, poking about 15 mm through the roof lining was a shiny, metal screw, pointy end down. One decent bump and I was going to be screwed. Literally.
I laid my seat back to put some space between me and the self-tapper and asked the driver if he could possibly explain this example of Flintstone engineering to me. "Not my cab, mate," said the driver. "But there was another one on my side. I took it out. Bloody dangerous, I reckon."
Later the same week, I found myself in a Sydney cab. As well as being completely worn out, the cab was distinguished by having the driver's seatbelt pulled around the back of the seat and clipped into the buckle. That stopped the warning chime from sounding, but it also meant the driver was completely unrestrained. Aside from the idiocy inherent in driving in Sydney traffic without a seatbelt on, what about me, the paying passenger? What would happen in, say, a roll-over if the driver - now a flying object - clobbered me in the melon? I can only hope the self-tapper screw from the previous cab would have held him in place.