Hi Poll,
I am not visibly disabled, so my problems are not the same as yours. However, it brings its own problems.
The taxi rank at Bristol Parkway station is - like all taxi ranks, I guess - a queuing system. Sometimes the drivers have queued many hours, in the hope of getting a lucrative long-distance fare (e.g. to the airport). BUT, it’s luck of the draw - and that is their choice.
The only trouble is, if the driver has waited ages, he gets resentful if the passenger only wants to go round the block, as I usually do (my house is probably only about five minutes away, by car).
So I get sarky comments, like: “You could walk that! Woss the matter with your legs?” Or: “Why don’t you get the bus?” (Yeah, just what I need after a long and tiring journey - to have to stand in the cold for the bus, and then a walk at the other end - with my suitcase!)
They still charge a minimum of £5, even for a five-minute journey - or the equivalent of £60 an hour, which is more than my hourly rate has ever been, my entire working life!
So I reckon they’ve got a cheek to moan about the short “bread-and-butter” fares, especially when they know the luck element is part of the job, and you win some, you lose some. It’s not fair to take it out on the passenger, because they’re greedy for a 50 quid fare, but only got a fiver! There are not many places (outside the sex industry, I’m guessing), where you can still get a fiver for two hours sat reading the paper, followed by five minutes work!
But it makes me nervous about getting a taxi from there, because I’m worried I’m going to get nasty comments, just because I don’t want to go very far. I’m not sure they should be in that line of work, if they can’t accept that as a normal part of the job. I’m sure it all averages out in the end, and that all the drivers are sometimes lucky, sometimes unlucky. If you can’t live with that, why be a taxi-driver, and have a go at the poor passenger?
Tina
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