What Barrow Taxi Drivers Put Up With

This is a small sample of what our local taxi trade here in Barrow in Furness has to put up with at the weekends. This is happening mainly after midnight when people have pre-loaded on cheap supermarket booze before heading into town. This is why the taxi trade is pushing for 3am early closure orders. Get folk out earlier and drinking in the more controlled environment of local pubs and clubs.

24 Hour Failure

We need to go back to sensible licensing hours then maybe we can save some of our pub's and working folk club's from closure.
People blame the smoking ban it's not that, it's the fact that because town centre clubs are open until 6am so the younger generation drink at home and then go out after midnight. Locally we only have to look at the nearby town of Ulverston  where the pubs are thriving even though everything closes before 2am. You will find lots of Barrow folk making the ten mile trip simply because nothing happens in Barrow until midnight. Tony Blair thought that with 24hr drinking we would become a cafe society and sip a glass of wine with a plate of pasta. Not a chance! we are Northern Europeans who consume as much alcohol in the shortest time possible. So let's get back sensible closing times and save our taxi drivers and folk in the licensed trade from this government sponsored idiocy.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2424718/24-hour-drink-law-disaster-Police-chiefs-brand-round-clock-pubs-terrible-mistakes-drunk-tanks-cope-late-night-mayhem.html

Net Beast

I had picked four guys up and one of them was saying how he had been talking to a 22 year old nymphomaniac in an internet chat room the previous night.
 His mates howled with laughter when I interrupted with the comment that it was probably a 22 stone transvestite for all he knew.
 There are still many gullible folk about who believe because they want to believe. 
 It reminded me off the young lady I took back to her home in Blackpool recently, which is about 70 miles from here; she had come through to visit someone she had met in the chat rooms and ended up staying the night.
 I said don’t you find that dodgy had you met him before or anything no she said we just spoke via the keyboard.
 Anyway as we drove along I had a better look at her in the rear view mirror and not to put to fine a point on it she was a beast!  So I don’t know how she had described herself to the poor guy but I bet he got a hell of a fright.
 She did tell me that he had paid the full £70 taxi fare so that says a lot to me.

Taxi Nightmare

Taxi (2013) Director Kevin Sharkey Producer Colm Sexton from Kevin Sharkey on Vimeo.
A Taxi ride turns into a nightmare for the driver and the female passenger. Caution: Strong language, racist and drug references. Shot on Canon 600D and 650D. Locations in Temple Bar and Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland

Jail Phone

A strange letter arrived at the local Taxi office that I work from the other day.
It was headed as coming from Her Majesty's Prison, which one I won't say to protect the identity of the letter writer. The writer explains that they had been picked up by one of the Acacia taxis a while ago and then found that they had no cash to pay the driver. Whether this was maybe an attempt to do a runner or not we don't know so let's give him the benefit of the doubt eh!
Anyway, the driver must have had the good sense to not let him get away with it and promptly asked for the guy's phone as surety.
 So the prisoner was explaining in the letter from jail that the next day he had been arrested and then sent to prison. What for he doesn't say in his letter so lets hope it isn't anything too bad eh! 
He didn't know who the driver was or what car he drove and only gave the street which he had been picked up from and a rough date.
 Amazingly, when the operator radioed over and asked if anyone knew anything about it a driver answered right away and confirmed that he had the guy's phone.
The prisoner asked in his letter if the driver could keep hold of his phone until he was released from incarceration in a few months' time.
Luckily, for him the driver readily agreed to this. But as no one was willing to write back in reply to the prisoner I guess that he will have to remain in suspense tucked up in his cell until he is finally released.     

Nee Naw

I was a bit curious when I spotted this car sporting the words N.W Blood Bikes.

I mean blood and bikes could mean any number of things to a lot of people eh?

So of course I googled it and the website tells me that they" provide a voluntary out of hours transport service to our local hospitals by carrying urgent and emergency blood, blood derivatives, samples, donor breast milk for premature babies, Doctors notes, and theatre equipment, in fact anything that can be carried by motorcycle, between hospitals.

We provide this service through the night, at weekends and Bank Holidays enabling hospital funding to be better spent on patient care."

Mmm I thought that sounds familiar, isn't that exactly what we as a local taxi service do every day of the year 24 hours a day. Of course we charge for our services but that's part of what we do for our living. Why do these seemingly charity minded bikers want to steal the bread from our table?

Is it because they want to help out the poor old cash strapped National Health Service?

Mmm maybe so but aren't they inadvertently helping to downgrade that very service into a charity aided shadow to the private health industry?

I have just heard recently that our area here in Furness has had a reduction in emergency ambulance cover down from five units to two. Oh but don't worry if anything major happens we can rely on the air ambulance helicopter to help. 

Mmm but wait a minute isn't that charity funded as well?  

What next: sponsor's names on staff uniforms and collection boxes in casualty maybe?

We should remember that we all pay towards the NHS and we shouldn't be helping to dismantle it.

But maybe the truth is that these guys may have the best of intentions but being blunt they could be seen as macho weekend warriors playing at being an emergency service rider.

Nee Naw Nee Naww eh!

Murder Miles

As soon as I saw the guy come out of the White House hotel I recognised him, it had been a long long while but I definitely remembered him.

A bit creepy with body language you somehow can’t interpret and laughing at inappropriate times was what I recalled most about him.

 He got in the cab without making eye contact and mumbled his destination and so we set of for Askam which is about six miles away.

 Not seen you for a long while I said, must be twelve or fifteen years maybe eh?

Have you moved away or something I asked.

 Without looking at me, he said, “No I’ve been in prison for a long while “without thinking it I stupidly said oh aye! What for?

” MURDER” he casually, replied.

There was an awkward silence for a while with me frantically racking my brain for a safer subject

How’s your father then not seen him for a while I asked?

It was him I was in jail for killing he said without looking up from playing with his phone.

Rest of the now long long journey in  total silence.