(no subject)

First off, I'm OK. If anybody reading this story in the local paper is worried, I'm fine. One of the drivers involved was a Silver Service cabbie in my outfit, but he's OK too.

On Friday night I arranged with my day driver to finish early, like 0200, and I spent the time after midnight down in Tuggeranong. I picked up one fare from the City rank, this took me down to Mawson, and once I was down that way I got job after job in the area and didn't get back to Civic before it was time to hand over the car.

The brawl took place about 0330, and actually I'm surprised that there were five cabbies around to get involved. With shift changeover notionally occurring at 0300, usually there's a queue of people and cabs arrive one by one.

Anyway, I wasn't involved, and the first I heard of it was when a series of passengers asked me about the taxi strike. Huh?

Five cabbies were involved, suffering some slight wounds, in a fight on the main cab rank in the early hours of Saturday morning. Apparently a man punched his girlfriend and a cabbie tried to intervene and it all escalated. There were no police in attendance and it emerges that the security cameras weren't working.

It seems that a call went out for an impromptu strike and those drivers working staid away from the main rank.

On Saturday night, there was an informal taxi strike after midnight. I went off to the Braddon Caltex - a major taxicab hangout - to see if I could find out what was happening and I found the servo and the surrounding streets crammed with parked cabs. Drivers were having a get-together, there were media and union officials in attendance.

I didn't stay for all of it, but a delegation was selected and a list of demands read out. One request, for up-front payment after midnight, received a strong cheer, and I realised that while I've had very few problems that way, my brother cabbies have suffered from fare evasion.

For the rest of my shift, which ended around 0400, I didn't pick up from the main rank. I suspect that a lot of the seventy or so cabbies in attendance did likewise or went home early. And Civic was packed. Pulling seventy cabs out of the two hundred or so working must have meant long queues. Waits of two hours or so. Maybe longer.

I had plenty of work elsewhere, and about 0230, I decided to call it a day. My last fare was from Downer to Lyneham, a quick little nine dollar job and I was looking forward to cleaning out the cab and handing over to my day driver. Then from the back seat, a voice said, "Fadden".

There was one passenger remaining, out of sight directly behind me, a young lady, and I all but groaned in frustration. Fadden is way down in Tuggeranong, and it would be an extra hour there and back, including gassing up the car and cleaning it out. Still, it's my business to get people home safely, so off we went.

I got suspicious about fifteen minutes later, once we were passing Woden. No sounds from the back seat, and I couldn't see any head in the rear-view mirror. Sigh. On arriving at Fadden, I stopped the car under a light and turned around. Sure enough, my passenger was sound asleep, and quite unresponsive to noise and light. I'm not in the business of touching my passengers, especially not unconscious young lady passengers, nor of rummaging through their handbags to find an address.

I cranked the airconditioner down to COLD, put on The Grateful Dead on Loud, and rocked along to a few songs. After "Truckin'" and no movement, I re-examined my options. The police station was another ten minutes, the meter was at $45 (even though I'd turned it off), I had no idea where she lived, and I was eating into the day driver's shift, with at least 45 minutes driving and stuff before I could drop the cab off.

I drove a kilometre to an all-night servo. If nothing else, I could wait there for a police car to cruise through and get their help.

Luckily, my passenger began stirring, and I was able to shout her awake, though not into full consciousness. I'm quite certain that she was under the influence of something - she didn't have any of the physical signs of drunkenness, but her responses made very little sense. They certainly involved nothing in the way of payment or a home address. I eventually said that I'd have to take her to the police station, and she told me to go to Fadden shops.

Fair enough. Fadden shops, and when we got there, she volunteered a nearby address. She identified it as home when we arrived, but on the matter of payment, a drivers licence was not a credit card, nor was a lipstick or cellphone any sort of money. Her purse looked to be empty of anything else. I checked the drivers licence for an address, which turned out to be one four houses away, so we went there. By this time the extra distance had put another six dollars on the meter, but if I'd been charging for waiting time, it would have been a lot higher.

As for money, she found three two-dollar coins, which I accepted. She got out, climbed the steps and let herself into the house with her keys, so that was a load off my mind.

I wrote out a quick note, explaining the situation and left it in the letter box. And this arvo, I got an apologetic phone call promising to leave the money in my letter box.

(Which, on checking, I find that she has done, bless her.)

I felt very sorry for her. Not because of the money so much, but because it took such a lot of effort to get her home safely. Once someone has gotten into my cab, I'm not going to leave them on the side of the road, especially not if they are a young lady under the influence. I'm sure that she was horribly embarrassed on waking.

Anyway, I drove home feeling reasonably stressed, especially as I was worried about a slow leak in one of the tires.

But nothing compared to being assaulted, I guess. Even with minor dramas, I'm still a very lucky and very happy cabbie.