Thread: What do you do

One of my female work colleagues recently went with a couple of other girls for a night out, they were not drunk or rowdy, not misbehaving or anything, just a nice night out with friends. Caught a cab home in brisbane, shut the cab door and the window winder or door handle fell off (as they do in cabs) and was quite clearly already broken. The cab driver went off at them, told them they had to pay for the damage, wouldn't listen when they told him it was already broken, proceeded to lock the central locking, refused to let them out until they paid him to fix the door handle. Obviously they refused as they hadn't broken it so he drove them to the Police station at 2am, who promptly told him he had nothing and couldn't hold them. He then wanted to charge them for the fare there. The cops tod him to go, so he made sure no cab from his company would pick them up. Cops ended up driving them home. Very distressing for them. This is why I don't take cabs.

Originally Posted by Ean Austral

Gday All,

I wish I didnt have to post this thread, but here goes..

Had a great day out and caught a taxi home ,well unfortuneately this was the problem, the taxi went like 20kms out of his way to get us home, now I have no problem paying extra for the people who work christmas, but there comes a limit to the christmas charity.

Anyway rang the taxi company and basically got told bad luck.

Is this Darwin or everywhere..

Merry Christmas to all..

Cheers Ean

Darwin taxi drivers are idiotic scum mate... I had one fleece me for a $70 fare from the airport to Palmerston on my first visit. I had no idea where we were due to the solid sheet of rain! When I learned what it should have cost, I never used them again after that incident. Not being one for the nighlife, this was easy to adhere to.

On another note, one night my housemate rang me at 4am asking me to pick him up from hospital, after being hit by one of those morons who ran a red-light in Mitchell St while he was crossing.

Safer to be designated-driver in Darwin!!!

When I was working for Social Security I ran two Control, Compliance, and Fraud teams across the taxi industry in conjunction with the ATO and Immigration. Got very good results too. Lots of overpayments raised, lots of benefits and pensions cancelled, goodly number of prosecutions.


The taxi industry prominents raised hell and started chewing the ears of pollies. Drivers were vanishing and cabs sitting empty. Owners and operators were getting their backs up and trying to avoid compliance with our team's requests for information about their operators and drivers. Easy to modify this attitude. Just tell them that they could tell my officers or the next ones to call would be an ATO field audit team and the Federal Police.

One of the very prominent executives of Brisbane's largest cab company got up me about not being able to get drivers because the then CES, (before Howard the Runt gutted it) would not list taxi driving jobs. I was able with great glee to tell him that the jobs could not be listed because the industry did not pay a fair wage, was not conducted at reasonable hours, and did not have award conditions like sick leave, annual leave, superannuation, etc. therefore the taxi driving jobs were not considered to be "suitable employment" as defined under Commonwealth industrial law. That is why the industry had to employ illegal immigrants, obese middle-aged disability pensioners, and tax/dole cheats. Nothing seems to have changed.

It has not got any better. Taxi fares are high because of the amounts of money siphoned off by management companies, licence owners, licence lessees, taxi operators, leaving the dregs for drivers, who are classed as "self-employed", leasing the cab for the duration of their shift under a bailment agreement. The ATO felt very strongly about this style of employment and chased it all the way to the High Court only to lose.

Originally Posted by Reads90

That surprises me as I thought that most of the people in redcliffe were too old for driving license. As it is Brisbane's heavens waiting room.


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Oii I resemble that remark

Ivan

So do I


EVERYBODY knows that Bribie Island is God's waiting room,there is even a place called "Eden on Bribie"

Its an industry that will be totally over taken by Indians in the next few years which I have no problem with in essence just their driving and english can be appalling.

I own a Bar and hear horror stories with 18 year olds staying out till 6 am so they don't have to cab it home and catch the 1st bus etc.
I also hear from cabbies they refuse to pick up single girls especially after midnight because all too often they say they can't pay and threaten with assault unless the cabbie lets them go.

Its not a pretty industry atm and will get worse before it well get better I fear.

What to do with over charging, just ring the company director and see what he can do, perhaps a credit for another ride or similar.

I was down at the big "Y" coy. a few months ago to lay a complaint about an employee's driving and with the execption of the receptionist and shift manager, I was the only other white man there,there were about 20 job applicants all from the sub-continent and english was not the spoken language the number of damaged vehicles in their repair dept was astounding most having RHS damage (fail to give way to right?)

I don't mind being cut off once in traffic by a cab/people mover(6 on board) as I used to drive one in the 60's Ascot black cars, but 4 times in city traffic is a little too much

cheers

Originally Posted by Ivan

Oii I resemble that remark

Ivan

Ops Sorry Ivan

I forgot you lived there

Ali


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