999 Taxi

Well it seems that the NHS now want cabbies as well as transporting patients home when they are still in a lot of cases desperately unwell now want us to attend 999 calls as well.
Not a lot of us have any sort of medical training or experience so if this is true then we can expect serious consequences.
I have had many cases of transporting discharged patients home and being more than a little worried about how they would cope when they got home. Some are brought to the taxi in wheelchairs and struggle to stand to get into the taxi. Then we have a struggle to help them out at the other end sometimes into a cold house without any way of preparing hot food for themselves.
We do what we can but at the end of the day we are neither qualified or paid to go beyond just driving the taxi. The other big issue is that if we do enter the patients property then we are not insured and are wide open to accusations of dishonesty or worse.    

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2513856/Dial-999-TAXI-How-stretched-ambulance-services-rely-cabbies-police-firefighters-pick-patients.html#socialLinks

Sheep and Ladders

I was talking to a fare today who told me that he had just got back from the Falkland Islands, he works out there for six long lonely months at a time.
 There are about a hundred sheep to every single man he was telling me, so I asked him if he knew all his by their first names.

Lots of daft people up flimsy looking ladders round here in Barrow in Furness putting up Christmas lights, looking at some of the dodgy ladders I can see the local hospital casualty department doing a roaring good trade.

Legal High Delivery

As I pulled the taxi into a quiet side street near Barrow town centre to drop off my fare today the road was blocked by a horde of thirty or so people milling about on foot and in three or four battered looking cars.
They looked like a right seedy bunch and and it seemed to me that it was obvious that they were up to no good. Whilst waiting for them to clear a path I said as much to my passenger. "I know exactly what they are up to because I know some of them" he said. He then opened his window and shouted a name, at this one of the motley crowd ran off at fast as his dirty trainers could carry him. "That's my younger brother and they are there for a delivery of the latest batch of legal high that one of scrotes in the cars has brought into town."
What amused me about it was the place they had chosen to meet up and deal this so called legal high was right outside our local Alcohol and Drug Advisory Centre!
What does that tell you about what these so called legal highs do for brainpower or am I woefully wrong and they were making an anti establishment political statement?
Alcohol and Drug Advice Centre
  

Dirty Curtains.

It's always been a bit of a standing joke with some of my regular passengers when I get near to dropping them in their street I will say something like” which house is it again is it the one with the dirty curtains” or” is it the one on the rough end of the street”. But sometimes I do slip up and say things like that to people who I don’t really know, like today I said “oh you mean the one with the scruffy garden “ the lady didn't look very amused at all.
 There was a local driver who is long retired now but who was very well known for making remarks when he picked up or dropped of passengers, he would in all seriousness say such things as” that door could do with a fresh coat of paint” or that grass needs cutting and your hedge trimming” and “you can buy a brush and shovel cheap enough you know”

Bully Boys

There must be a whole generation of children growing up now who must be absolutely terrified of taxi drivers. There are lots of mothers who when the child won't sit still or be quiet use the threats of "the driver will shout at you"" the driver will throw you out," the driver will hit you."

I myself am perfectly mild mannered and non violent and have never been known to kick, bite or scratch at any time unless seriously provoked and I sometimes struggle to stop myself from laughing at these idle threats. Some of the younger kids do take it half seriously though and you can see them looking at me in frightened awe in case I really am the psychotic sadist that mother says I am. 

I don’t suppose we will get many taxi fares of these children when they grow up eh!

Plain Sailing

The fare who I later found out was a sailor on his way back to join his ship in Plymouth must have been taking his last fond farewells from his lady friend.
 She was still naked hiding her modesty behind the door she waved him off, only problem being she had forgotten that the door was glass.
 He come out to the taxi and got in we both looked back at her still waving to him and still unaware of her ample charms being on display. 
And then we looked at each other  and smiled and he said "daft cow."

Beckham

David Beckham gets into the back of my taxi the other day and he sees me looking at him in the rear-view mirror.
 After about five minutes patiently waiting I said: ''OK give me a clue.'' Beckham says: ''I had a glittering career at Manchester United, played in America and got over 100 caps for England, is that enough?''
I sighed and said: ''No, you idiot, where do you want to go?"