Saturday, September 30, 2006

Through A Windshield, Darkly: They're back!!

Through A Windshield, Darkly: They're back!!
If you really want to see drunken head cases come to Dublin.
Absalutely totally wrecked on drink...I asked another driver one day.How can they do this night after night? His answer was...John its not the same people.. its just when they are drunk they seem like the same person.
John Dublin

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

New fares?

Sometimes you go so fast you can't smell the coffie.
I couldn't understand why with the new fares increase I have been earning the same money.Now I know, my meter has not changed over ! It was supposed to change on the day of the new fare change, it was callibrated 2 months ago all set to go.
So much for technology.
Now I will have to join a queue of all the other taxis to have it corrected.
Saw the two scariest movies ever. Hostel ..murder and horror..And Wall Mart..The high cost of selling cheap. I thought I had problems!!. Not any more.
So tomorrow it's brakes, oil and meter.No work. Such a wonderfull life.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

U2

Today U2 were doing a book launch in O"Connell St.
I picked up a lady going out to Sandymount and on the way there she told me that years ago she used to work at Windmill lane studios .
One day a long time later she was queing for a taxi when two guys tried to jump the queue. A guy behind her shouted "hey this lady is first" and proceded to hold the door and help her into the cab.."where are you going?" he asked "Sandymount" she replied." Look I am going to Ringsend, can we share the cab?" So they shared the cab and Bono says " I know you ,you used to work in Windmill lane,do you not remember me Im Bono."
It was quite funny really ,her not recognising him while he remembered her after all those years.
You know when someone famous gets in you often don"t recognise them, you think did that fella used to be a waiter in thr Trocadero? It only comes back days later..So thats who Barry Manalo looks like. (not that we have ever met)

First steps

Hello and welcome to to the first page of my blog.
At present here in Dublin its raining and the Ryder cup is on. Its quite a circus for traffic.
Taxis have been on one day strike for a couple of months now,so here is a brief overview of what its all about.
Around 5 years ago the number of taxis in the city was limited to 3030 or thereabouts.If you wanted to become a driver you had 4 choices.
1 You bought an existing taxi for 80,000 pounds the price of a house at the time.
2 You rented a taxi for 300 pounds per week plus insurance and petrol,day shift or nights.
3You hoped to be luckey when the draw would be held for new licences would be held.
4 You could also buy a hackney plate and work through a radio company.With a hack plate you could not work from a rank or pick up on the street. This did not stop many of the drivers doing it all the time.

One guy brought a case to the government saying that the corperation could not have a manopoly for the taxi licences, he took the case to Europe and won. The Gov. were told that they could not limit the numbers as thay had been doing.
Now if there had been discusssion among the people involved, then perhaps future entrants to the business would have had to pay a bond to be invested on their behalf or something like that. But with the collapse of taxi licence prices many drivers many drivers pensions dissappeared overnight.
Remember taxi plates were costing 80,000 pounds.
The Gov set the price of new licences at 7,000Pounds.
The number of taxis in Dublin had risen to allmost 13,000 Thats more than New York.
Everyone who had a spare day or two in the week bought a taxi, retired, redundant..Even Solisators bought taxi plates so that they could sail into work using the bus lanes..Michael OLeary head of Ryanair is a classic example. Yes he owns his own taxi.
So it was getting hard and then allong the taxi regulator who will rule the industry with regulation..www.taxiregulator.ie
Many changes have come but the hardest one is the abolition of pickup and luggage charges at the airport. The present status is that we pay70c to enter the holding area, when we are called up we redeem the waiting time and the airport charge by charging e1.50.
The airport authorithy are now going to abolish the entry charge in place of a once off e500 while the regulator is abolishing the luggage and pick up charges.
He has introduced other things, good and bad but none of these changes which he introduced can be appealed, he is a bit of a loose cannon, lets hope he shoots himself soon.
Now I have bored you all to death I will wish you goodnight.
John