Taxi for one person

Part of the job description being a taxi driver is having to put up with the drunks and other idiots that we get in the cab but this week I just couldn't believe it when a passenger got in the cab and told me where he wanted to go. Seeing the meter start on £1.50p on tariff 4 he thought I was ripping him off and told me that the meter said I was charging him for 4 people. I did try to explain that the number 4 was the tariff number and not the amount of people in the cab.

He insisted that I turn the meter off and set it to number 1 for 1 person. (Tariff 1 is more expensive than tariff 4) but he's the customer and the customer is always right (do they still say that).

I put the meter on number 1 as he requested. It started at £2.00p and he never queried the extra 50 pence difference. He was just quite happy to see the number 1 on the meter thinking it meant one person.

At the end of the short half mile or so journey he paid the fare of £2.20p, gave me a £5 note and told me to keep the change.

You just cant understand how some peoples brains function.

Bingo!!!!!

Bingo must be a very popular game amongst both old and young as we pick up all walks of life from the sad pathetic chavs to the old age pensioners that like to while away a few hours of the day playing their favourite game.

Some people go to pass a few hours during the day for a little fun. Others take it more seriously and go to gamble their money with a chance of winning and others virtually live in the bingo halls spending money day and night.

After the game of bingo, the taxi driver will wait to pick the fare up and the fare on most occasions will see the taxi driver waiting and keep us waiting whilst they feed the rest of their money into slot machines hoping to make a big win.

The chances are they will come out and get in the cab and say they didnt win and have a moan about why they bother going and that theu`ve spent all their money and so this leads to a situation earlier this week when I picked up a young chav from the bingo. She saw me waiting but kept feeding more and more coins into a rather hungry looking slot machine and shouting abuse at it. Shortly after she came out and attempted to light up what seemed the end of a cigarette, took 2 puffs then threw it down on the floor and then got in my car.

In true Jeremy Kyle chav style she said "Didnt win again, dunno why I bother, its good fun though innit, i need a drink, sort of... take me to the Barrow Arms innit"

After translating this I made the journey of less than half a mile and she was telling me how good she was at playing bingo and hardly ever lost. Its a game of skill she said, you have to have an idea of what numbers are going to come up..

Game of SKILL..... Its balls coming out of a machine at Random.. She wasnt happy when i told her this. I went on to say that there's no skill in bingo. Its numbers at random being drawn and marked off on a card. How can that be skilful.

She wasn't happy when I pointed out that bingo was just like the lottery. Its a gamble. You pay your money and you either win or lose. There's no skill.

At the end of the short journey she had the cheek to say that the taxis are too expensive and take up all her money. This sad pathetic whimp of a chav had just spent a fair few quid in the bingo, is now off to the pub to spend probably a lot more and she whinges about the taxi fare.

Think I`ll put the lottery on tonight. If I do it a set way, maybe I will win... I think not. Its all totally RANDOM.

Now lets see how many bingo players I`ve upset.

Who Polices the Police

There I am driving at around 20mph when a Police van pulls out of the police station without looking straight into my path narrowly missing me. He had no sirens or blue lights on at the time. but within a few seconds of pulling out the driver of the police van decides to put his siren and blue light on.

If there had been an accident then who would have been at fault and would the police officers involved in the crash be the same ones that interview me. That would be predudice.

The Police van pulled out without looking and without indicating.

Good job I have in car CCTV with different angled cameras. The clip below shows it all in colour and with sound thanks to camera number 2 in the car

Take a look at the CCTV footage and judge the order of events for yourself. Pull out without looking, turn on siren, apply blue light. Me thinks it should all be in a different order.

Found Property

First fare of the day and I picked up a young girl and took her to an address on Walney Island. She duly paid the fare and got out of the cab and I drove off.

Shortly after, the office called me on the radio and asked if I had found anything on the back seat as the girl I had dropped off had lost something. I wasnt aware of what it was that she lost til I turned round and had a look. Maybe its just me but at a very quick glance it looked like a long haired rat and so I dived out of the car and was about to shut the door when the office radio'd to me saying it was a hair extension.

I suppose I should have looked more carefully rather than just glance but its made me more wary of what goods people carry in the cab.

Go on, laugh at my expense. looking at it, it looks nothing like a rat but at the time I thought it was something sinister and you never know if there`s teeth hiding under any hairy thing that could jump up and bite....... :)

Directions

Its surprising how many people don't know their left from their right. Tonight I picked a girl up from a local pub who knew where she wanted to go but didn't know the name of the place so she took it upon herself to direct me. She gets in the back of the cab and sits directly behind me.

Go down here she says so I set off, then she said "When you get to that large circle in the road go round it and come out the other end". A little baffled I realised the large circle was a roundabout and she wanted me to take one of the exits but I didnt know which so quicky I asked which way and she said "That Way". She was pointing somewhere but as she was sat directly behind me I couldnt see which way. So I asked "Left or Right". She said "Straight On". I went straight on and she then said, "No , not that straight on but the other straight on,"

Bearing in mind this roundabout had 3 exits, left, straight on and right. I am now baffled as to where she wants to be so I turned round and said to her that we will start again but to tell me the direction rather than pointing making it quite clear that I dont have eyes in the back of my head.

Best of it was, she was sober and couldnt direct me to where she wanted to go. Eventually after directing me over to Walney Island (some one and a half miles away) she exclaimed that she remembered the street name and it was called Ormsgill Lane"

I had to tell her that she had directed me in the wrong direction and so I took her to where she really wanted to go.

Bit of a runaround with this job but it was a nice little earner as the meter was ticking up nicely.

People who dont drive may not know left from right or in this case how many "Straight Ons" there are but isnt it common logic to make sure the driver can see you pointing directions.

Surely people cant be that stupid.

A stones throw away

Heres another recent event that taxi drivers have to put up with.

Its bad enough putting peoples lives at risk and I have seen it happen here locally on a few occasions where idiots think its funny to throw stones or hurl bricks at passing taxis, wagons, buses and other vehicles. Well let me say thats its not big and its not clever as it mmay be a game to some and maybe its a sad pathetic lowlife way of life to others but by doing what they do they are putting peoples lives at risk and also causing thousands of pounds worth of damage.

Read on below. Double click to view full size

A Trip to the beach

The weather lately has been extremely hot and today I picked up 2 American Ladies and an English Lady. The Americans were staying with her and they wanted me to take them to the beach so they could take photographs.

When I got to the beach they asked if I could leave the meter running and walk with them on the beach and take photos. What a great time. we had a walk and took some photos and spent a good 20 minutes there. The cuistomers bought me an Icecream and then off we went to another beach whjere we spent around 10 minutes before heading in the opposite direction towards Furness Abbey for even more pictures.

If only I could get customers like this all the time. I get to enjoy myself on the beach and get paid for it at the same time as well as making the most of this fantastic heatwave

Handbrake Turn

Most passengers that we pick up just want to go about their own business and often we have a chat along the way and the passenger pays the fare and off we go onto the next job.

However, there are times that we will pick up the odd lowlife scumbag chav type of person who thinks its funny to either annoy the driver by doing something stupid but read the clip below as this just shows the type of idiot there is out there and the sort of scum that we have to deal with.

Double click the image to enlarge

World Taximeter

Came across this neat little website at www.worldtaximeter.com

On this site you can find out what is a fair taxi fare from A to B in many major cities around the world.

There are currently 18 cities listed and there is a form at the bottom of the homepage for you to make your expansion suggestions.

You pick a city using the drop down menu then put your start and end points in the search boxes provided.

After a short wait, the fare estimate and a map of the journey will appear.

Smoking Ban

It was only a short journey of just under a mile but the young man who got in the car seemed to think that as he was paying for the fare that he had the right to do whatever he liked in the car and I know this as he told me himself.

First off he is sat in the front seat and tried to put his feet up on the dashboard. I told him to put his feet down and he said "I`m paying you the fare for this taxi so that means I can do whatever I like as I`m paying for it".

He then proceeded to light up a cigarette and I pointed out that it was illegal but he wouldnt listen so at that point I stopped the car and threatened to throw him out. He apologised so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and carried on the journey. He then politely asked "Please can I smoke in your car". (I think he was being sarcastic) and quick thinking without realising what I said. I replied "Only if I can fart in your face. If i`ve gotta put up with your smell then you can put up with mine"

The jouney ended very shortly after that, I asked for the £2 fare, He paid it and gave me a £2.00 tip.

All that aggro for what seemed the longest mile I`ve ever driven and I get a 100% tip. There's no figuring out some people.

RESPECT

RESPECT..... Wheres it gone...

This weekend, last job of the night around 4am I picked a young chav up and took him to an address in the town centre. On the journey into town he was ok and very quiet, you know the type, not very talkative but there again chavs do have a limited vocabulary.

On arriving at his destination he didnt have enough to pay the fare and got out the cab and knocked on a door to get it. After getting no response he kicked the door and shouted words to the effect of "Open this F****ng door now. A woman answered the door and he became very abusive with her. "Pay the taxi now you slag" was what he said to her.

5 minutes went by whilst he went in the house with her and then she shouted through the partly open front door for me to get the police. Just then, the young chav came out and paid me the fare using money given to him by the woman. At this point I learnt that the woman was his mother as he told me that his mother gave him the money.

I then notice his mother at the door with blood all over her nose and mouth. The young chav grabbed his mobile phone from me and flew towards his mother who immediately slammed the door and locked him out.

I`ve now been paid and am on my way but as I moved off down the street I could hear this young thug banging and kicking the door and shouting obscenities at the top of his voice. I did call the police for fear of his mothers safety and judging by the noise he was making then I`m guessing most the neighbours would have also called the Police

Maybe its me, maybe its the way I`ve been brought up but I was always taught to respect my elders and I never ever would have treated my mother like this. Whats the world come to???

The best of it is that this violent chav didnt seem drunk or high on drugs and yet he was violent towards his mother and had total disregard for his mothers neighbours.

Wheres That Then?

I picked 3 females up this week and the conversation in the cab between them was along the lines of a new taxi company not knowing where streets and places were and how the service is of no good.

My ears pricked up so I could try and find out which company they were on about.

One girl says that when she rang for a cab she wanted to be picked up from the Cemetery Cottages Club only to be asked by the taxi office - "Wheres That Then". Up the road from the Tally Ho was the answer. Tally Ho???? Never heard of that one. What area is that...... Our young passenger said "Near Asda". The reply from the cab compnay was "Which Asda". Our girl says "Theres only one asda, got in a stroppy mood and told them that they were all a bunch of useless $£*&$ and hung up.

So the other girl in the car asks her mate which company she rang and she said she didnt know as she had used her other mates phone and it just said TAXI on the phone.

Her other mate (the 3rd girl in the car) who had been quiet upto now started laughing. At this point I found out her mate lived in Manchester ( about 90 miles away) and was visiting our local town and so the cab company in question was a Manchester company. No wonder they were confused,

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

The Nanny State that we seem to live in these days has managed to convince all and sundry that every child in Britain is under diabolical threat from predators, incompetents and psychos. The atmosphere of fear that this engenders enables Nanny to supply all manner of "safety" checks and "public" services. These generate the government massive amounts of extra revenue, justify the existence and keep the unwashed population (that's you and me folks!) under control.

Here is a fine example of how Nanny has taken control of even the most normal of everyday activities, namely that of a mother taking her son to school.

Jayne Jones had been taking her 14 year old epileptic son Alex each day to school by taxi, she also took with her specialist equipment in case he had a fit.

All well and good until Nanny stuck her bony old nose into the matter. Mrs Jones has now been told that this activity must stop until her details had been run through a Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) check.

Mrs Jones, from Aberfan in south Wales, said:

"It's crazy that I have to be CRB checked before I can ride in a taxi with my own son.

I have to be checked to go in a taxi with him, but if I was able to drive him myself they wouldn't care and even offered to pay me expenses.

The taxi company is great and they carry Alex's medication but they won't use it and they wouldn't know how to put him in the recovery position if needs be."

Alex takes a combination of 32 anti-convulsant tablets a day, and is currently travelling to his special needs school in Merthyr Tydfil with no one trained to cope if he has an attack.

He has been fitted with the Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) therapy system under the skin, which works like a pacemaker to help control electrical signals which can malfunction and cause him to seize.

His parents are the only ones trained to use and understand the therapy. Yet the council still wants the CRB check.

A spokesman from Merthyr Tydfil Council said:

"The CRB checking is a requirement of our transport provisions in relation to adults travelling on home-to-school transport in the capacity of an escort.

This is a standard requirement and has been for several years.

Any adult acting as an escort will, in the public gaze, be viewed as acting with the full acquiescence of the council and hence with its implied authority.

For the protection of the council and all vulnerable persons in its care it's essential all those endowed with an authority, implicit or explicit, should meet the security requirements within the transport contract provisions."

I read the above several times, and must confess I haven't a clue what he is talking about and how that really justifies a CRB check on the kid's mother.

The real reason behind the waffle, I suspect, is that the CRB check will generate revenue for Nanny.

Priorities and Liberties

It was early evening when I got a call to pick a young girl up from the local chinese. She got in the car with 2 carrier bags. One had her chinese meal in it and the other was full of tins of beer.

During the journey she asks me if £2.10p would get her home. I knew it wouldnt but there again wouldnt be too far off and under normal circumstances, a young girl on her own I would have took her home so to make sure she got home safely but some people just take it for granted that as they pay for a taxi at the end of the journey that they can get away with a little bit more than they would if buying goods in a shop.

Now look at the scenario. She`s got in the cab with chinese and beer and then expects a cheap cab home. Would she have expected cheap beer or food. So when the meter got to £2.10p I stopped tha cab. She then said she could pay when she gets home and I started getting a little suspicious about it. I took her home. Fare was £2.50p. She then asked me if I could come back for the other 40p nbext Tuesday then had the cheek to say that if I`m coming back next Tuesday she will keep the money she has and pay me it all next week.

I was having none of it. I took the £2.10p and also said that I required payment of the balance there and then. She offered me 2 cans of larger as payment. So I took them.

At least when I finished a long shift I had a drink to relax with.

It just annoys me that customers take liberties this way. Their priorities are all wrong.

Country Roads - Take Me Home

Maybe its a title of a song but this week it was reality for us drivers as a small section of road was closed off due to a serious accident which left the road closed for a few hours.

This meant a good mile and half or more detour to get from Barrow In Furness to the next town of Dalton In Furness. The options were a detour along the bypass or depending on where you wanted to be in Dalton using country roads via our local tourist attraction Furness Abbey.

Around this area we are used to a wide variety of different styles of roads but the narrow country lanes and the backroads were kept busy as everyone was using them and travelling in oppsite directions meant a tight squeeze at some places to get through.

The passengers didn't mind as they understood the road was closed and seemed to enjoy the alternate scenic route but it makes you think.....

How much we miss a small section of road that is closed. A quarter of a mile section of road caused a mile to 2 mile detour.

The Cover of a mobile phone

Earlier this week I picked a fare up and took her home, dropped her off. She paid the fare got out the cab and I carried on to my next job. Nothing wrong with that.... Lets move forward 3 days....

3 days later..... She rings the office saying she may have left her phone in my cab. Now at this point I have probably picked up a lot of fares in the last few days and if it wasnt in the cab then its possible anyone could have taken it. As it happens a quick search of the cab revealed a lump down the back of the rear seat. Having to get my hand down and wriggle it around under the seat I managed to grab what felt like a mobile phone and slowly pull it from under the back of the seat.

When I got the phone out and looked at it the cover that holds the battery in place was missing so I guessed it had come off whilst trapped underneath the seat.

It took near on 20 minutes for me to get my tools out and start removing the rear seat so that I could find this persons phone cover. What I did find was about 8 pennies, a train ticket and a receipt for something but no phone cover.

I decided not to hang about any more on this, put the seat back in the car and went to deliver the phone to the lady who had lost it and explained that it was stuck solid down the back of the seat and I couldnt find the missing cover.

Her reply....... Oh that... I knows its missing, I lost it a while ago.

Meanwhile I had been looking for a part that wasnt there.

The things we do for customers. If only she had explained this to our telephonists when she rang up about it in the first place...

Bah....

Honest cabbie

A recent news article has reported that hundreds of Argentinians have been donating money to a taxi driver who found more than £20,000 in cash in his cab and returned it to its owners.

The donations started after a website was set up calling for gestures of gratitude for his "extraordinary act of honesty", reports the BBC.

So far the equivalent of nearly £10,000 has been donated, according to the site.

Santiago Gori, a taxi driver in the coastal city of La Plata, found £21,600 in a bag in the back of his taxi after driving an elderly couple a short distance.

A few days later he managed to locate his passengers again and he returned the bag. For Argentines used to corruption at all levels of society, this was an extraordinary story.

Two young advertising agency employees decided to set up a website to thank Mr Gori further for his exemplary behaviour.

Now thousands of people have accessed the site and have left hundreds of rewards and messages for Mr Gori.

Mr Gori said he only did what had to be done - and that he does not quite know what to do with all the things he has been offered.

Full story taken from this link

The Paratrooper

What a way to end a shift. The guy I picked up from one of the towns main nightclubs was well drunk. He clambered into the back of the cab, couldn't remember where he was going and after telling me he wanted to go to the nearby Isle of Walney I then set off.

He decided to lean forward, then sideways and did a few funny manoeuvres in the rear seat before finally falling asleep. I thought nothing of this as its quite usual for drunks to fall asleep on their way home but what did startle me was that part way through the journey he suddenly, woke up, sat up as straight as he could, mumbled something, opened the door and jumped out of the car.

I stopped to make sure he was ok after he decided to jump out of a moving car and after a bit of sorting out it transpires he thought he was in an aeroplane and was ready to parachute out.

He was very lucky not to sustain any injuries apart from ripped clothing and a few grazes and it was a good job I was going slow as I was in an area with speed ramps.

Strange thing is, he seemed to sober up pretty quick, realised what had happened, apologised and paid the fare before walking off up the road.

Taxi drivers grumpy workers?

A recent report shows that London Taxi drivers are Britain's grumpiest workers, according to a survey on Monday, while secretaries are the happiest.

The gloomy prospect of ferrying around strangers every day makes taxi-drivers laugh less than any other profession, according to the survey of 4 000 workers.

Drivers cited traffic jams, the rising cost of petrol, drunken passengers and frisky couples as reasons not to be cheerful.

Fitness instructors could lighten up too, with just 0.9% of them saying they enjoy a giggle in the gym.

Those in recruitment could also do with a good dose of humour, the survey said, as just 3.8% laughed regularly during the working day.

By contrast, 53.5% of secretaries said they laughed on a regular basis during a working day, with a quarter of those surveyed confessing that most of their amusement comes from watching the stressful lives of their disgruntled bosses.

Other workers scoring high on the laughter scale were, perhaps surprisingly, accountants - many of whom said they regularly played pranks or wound up their workmates to alleviate the daily grind - and teachers.

The results of the survey, conducted for comedy TV channel G.O.L.D. also revealed a correlation between laughter at work and days off taken sick.

The more we laugh, it seems, the less we skive.

Heroin courier taxi driver jailed

You never know what could be lurking in your cab. Customers leave all sorts of stuff and some of it is never claimed such as the taser gun that Bob found in his cab a while ago. If you missed that story then click HERE to read it on the blog.

The chances are that you don't know exactly what goods your passengers are carrying and if a customer asked you to deliver a package to an address then would you just do it or question what is in the package.

Read the latest taxi news below and ask yourself. What would you do if given a package to deliver. This story is slightly different in view of the fact the idiotic driver knew what he was carrying.


Heres the story from the BBC News website


A taxi driver who admitted carrying £200,000 worth of heroin to Scotland has been jailed for 32 months.

John Arnold, 45, of George Street, Whitefield, Manchester, was driving north on the A74(M) when police stopped him for routine checks near Lockerbie.

Officers noticed he was nervous and carried out a drugs search of his taxi where they found four packs of heroin.

At the High Court in Edinburgh, Judge Lord Brailsford described it as an "act of gross folly and stupidity".

The court heard how police officers stopped him on the motorway in the south of Scotland in August last year.

They noticed Arnold appeared nervous and was vague and evasive when he spoke to them.

They also spotted a carrier bag sticking out from beneath the front passenger seat and detained him for a drugs search.

Police officers found four packages wrapped in brown paper each containing a half kilogramme of heroin.

The haul was worth a maximum of £200,000 if broken down into street deals.

Arnold told police he was being paid £300 to bring the package north from his home city.

He admitted being concerned in the supply of the Class A drug on 21 August last year.

Arnold had previously been granted bail to allow him to have a knee operation.

Judge Lord Brailsford said he now had no choice but to jail him.

He said: "I am prepared to accept that this offence is out of character.

"I have no alternative but to impose a custodial sentence."

'Strong suspicion'

The judge said he would have jailed him for four years, but the sentence would be reduced following his guilty plea.

Defence counsel Frances Connor said Arnold ran an amateur football team and through that contributed to youth training in his local area.

She said: "It is clear he has disappointed many people by his appearance here today."

Ms Connor said that for several months Arnold had been transporting a man on local journeys who came to be a valued customer.

He was asked by the man to run him to Glasgow where he had "some business" and was offered cash payment for the trip.

However, when Arnold went to pick up the passenger he was told he could not go and would like him to take a package to Glasgow.

The defence counsel said: "He knew something was wrong.

"He had a strong suspicion about what he was being asked to do."

Penny Pinching

The majority of fares will pay what is on the meter and usually give you a tip. Sometimes big, sometimes small. It works both ways as if its say for example £1.90p on the meter the chances are the customer will give you £2 and say keep the change. If it says £2.10p on the meter then I will often say to the customer just give us £2 but this week I got one customer who I had been told was a bit tight and I didnt know whether to believe it or not so off we set on a short journey that was to be £2.25p on the meter.

The customer paid me using a £2 coin, a 20p coin and 3 2p coins totalling £2.26p. I took the money and out it away expecting him to get out the car but he sat there. I had a feeling he was waiting for his penny change so when I rummaged through my loose change and gave him a penny he then thanked me and got out of the car.

Prior to picking this person up I could see him feeding coins into a slot machine and losing.

Red-faced police crack mystery

|A recent news story in Ireland. Nothing to do with taxis but made me laugh anyway

Irish police chasing a Polish driver who had apparently committed more then 50 motoring offences have discovered the embarrassing truth.

Officers had been puzzled how the mysterious 'Prawo Jazdy' had always produced his documents - but with a different address each time.

However, they have now discovered that 'Prawo Jazdy' is Polish for driving licence, reports Metro.

An internal Garda memo, reported in Irish papers, said officers taking details of Polish traffic offenders had been mistakenly using 'Prawo Jazdy', printed in the top right corner of the driving licence, as the holder's name.

"Prawo Jazdy is actually the Polish for driving licence and not the first and surname on the licence," the police memo said.

"It is quite embarrassing to see the system has created Prawo Jazdy as a person with over 50 identities."

A Garda spokesman declined to comment on the reports.

Taxi-driver's own goal

A taxi driver unwittingly became the getaway driver for a thief who had just burgled his home.

Mr Shen, of Huainan city, picked up the passenger at a bus stop at around 3am, reports Xin'an Evening Post.

"He had a lot of home appliances, so I helped him put all of his things into the cab," he said.

"I noticed he had a fish without a tail, and I thought how much it looked like the fish in my freezer at home. But then I laughed at myself for even having the thought."

The passenger said he had just returned from a trip to his home town and had been dropped off by a long distance bus.

Mr Shen only realised the truth when he later returned home to find his house broken into and his possessions - including the tail-less fish - missing.

Police later arrested a 56-year-old man who faces charges of burglary and theft.

Chicken

More CCTV footage of what seems to be a big thing on our roads at the moment and with the school summer holidays on the way soon then I expect to see more of this foolish behavior.

An idiotic teenager stands in the road and refuses to move for cars traveling towards him. It only takes a momentary lapse of concentration from the driver or the idiot of a kid to fall when running away from the car andan accicent is imminent.

Of course, its the drivers fault every time as far as the magistartes are concerned as motorists are easy targets. Where are the parents of these cretins and do they know what dangerous games their kids are playing.

Play the clip below. Filmed Schneider Road, Barrow In Furness

Sleep

Why is it that when people are so relaxed in a car that they fall asleep on the journey. It usaully happens with kids on long journeys. Maybe its the drone of the engine or something along those lines.

Its a totally differnt thing when you pick up one of the towns visitors to the local hostelry's and they`ve had a little too much to drink and are tired. Its a common occurance late at night that they will invariably fall asleep during the journey and the hardest part is trying to wake them.

Whats the best way to wake them and get the fare off them. I usually just shout loud or give them a dig but sometimes it doesnt work.

One guy I picked up this week was so tired and drunk that he managed to tell me where he wanted to be before falling asleep. When I got to his house I woke him. This was a major fete in itself as he seemed totally out of it. A shout, a dig, a poke and a prod woke him then it was the usualy 5 minutes of him going through his pockets so he could pay me. First off he offers to pay by Barclaycard. I couldnt accept this payment as we are not geared up for it but I did take a look at his card and note down his name should I have needed it for anything. He then pulled out a condom and offered me that. This was followed by a load of loose change amounting to 27p and 4 lollies which he tried to sell me as part of the taxi fare.

At this point I wasnt sure what I was going to do with him when his wife/partner came out the house and paid the fare and dragged him out of the car.

I wouldnt have liked to be him the next morning.

Bank Holiday Cruising

Its been a busy bank holiday weekend with the usual mixed weather but this didnt stop thousands of holiday makers enjoying Barrow and The Lake District as "The Tahitian Princess" Cruise Liner docked and welcomed American holiday makers to the town.


This meant plenty of taxis at the docks waiting for the passengers and taking them on a daily tour of such areas as Coniston and The Lakes as well as local historic places like Furness Abbey and a drive round the coast.

A great day out for the passengers and the drivers and no one lost out as even the drivers who stayed locally to pick up our regular fares were more than happy as it meant there wern't as many cabs in the town and therefore more work for the local lads