Free Car in NZ

BabyFirstDay,
originally uploaded by skyring.

I own a car in a foreign country. Mitsubishi Magna about 1994 vintage. A lovely car, goes well. We bought it for our daughter when she was staying in Pukehina, which is where it is now, being used occasionally by relatives, who are moving away soon. We drove it to and from Auckland and down to Napier and back, and it didn't miss a beat.

Is anybody interested in taking it off our hands? No charge, or for whatever it costs to transfer it.

Kissing the customers

I'm not often physically intimate with my passengers. I gave an Aboriginal lady a hug once. She was about my age, big as a house, had an extended family of about a million and was just such a lovely person that I couldn't help but hug her.

But I rarely do more than smile at an especially delightful passenger.

Saturday usually starts off slow in the afternoon and gets bigger. "Busy day, driver?" they'll ask and I'll reply, "Ah, very quiet. But that's Saturday for you. Won't pick up much until after midnight."

I might be flat out run off my feet, barely time to scratch myself, but unless a passenger is someone innoffensive, like a little old lady with a walking frame who won't be remotely interested or able to beat me up for the night's takings, it's always a slow shift if anybody asks. Or if cabs are whizzing round madly and the passenger's been waiting an hour for a cab, I'll tell them that I only just started. I might have a five o'clock shadow and there's dirt all over my floor mats, but yeah, I just started.

This Saturday was about as quiet as any other, and I'd brought along a book and a Sudoku puzzle and other things to occupy my time while I waited on a sunny rank.

First passengers were a couple of prostitutes. Well, they didn't say they were, but when two slender young women jump into my cab about half past four in the afternoon and say "Charlies Angels" (the name of a brothel in Mitchell}, I figure they aren't going there to have a cup of tea.

They chatted in the back seat, and they discussed the shopping they'd done, and they complimented me on my music and how I was taking a good route. "Other cabbies, they go the long way," one said, "and when we say something, they just grunt."

They loved my iPod Touch, by the way. Everyone does. I kept on playing recent videos. Drops of Jupiter, I Don't Feel Like Dancing, Dido...

We had a lovely ride out to Mitchell. I'm usually out there at night, bringing drunken young men to the strip club next door. It's a different world then, with huge red neon lights and the caryards and secondhand furniture shops deserted. But on a quiet Saturday afternoon, I was just dropping off a couple of fellow night workers for their shift.

I even got a tip when they exited the cab. "Hey come up and see us later," one said, "We'll look after you."

I waved them a laughing goodbye and set out again.

Next passenger was a priest, believe it or not. He was clad entirely in black, had a worn leather bag, and after a long ride in which he barely spoke, paid with a corporate credit card.

And after that, it was steady work through the evening and night. My last job was off to the northside at Giralang, only a few suburbs away from Gungahlin where I drop off the car, and I called it quits at about half one, as I had to hand over the cab to the day driver at two.

I hit the 24 hours car wash, vacuumed out the interior, and headed off, looking forward to an early night.

A mesage came up on the screen about an M20 in progress in Giralang. An M20 is a code meaning that a driver has activated his panic button. At that stage live voice and video from inside the car is transmitted back to base and nearby cabs are alerted to go and assist, if possible.

The next message indicated the cab moving towards Gungahlin, along a road I was close by. I headed south with the aim of intercepting it. Next message showed it very close indeed, and I spotted it in a few moments, parked on the side of the road near the golf club.

I made a quick u-turn and pulled up behind, noting with some relief that other taxis were converging from various directions.

Only two occupants, a very agitated driver of Pakistani extraction, and his female passenger, sitting directly behind him, fuming.

The driver hopped out and began explaining some complicated story about how he had driven around looking for the correct address, and the lady interrupted with her side. I ignored her for the moment and tried to get the driver's story straight. It seemed that he had had trouble finding the street, and the woman had wanted to get out. He'd stopped and she'd paid him. The woman then indicated that she had felt very unsafe, and that her street wasn't far away, naming it.

Both were quite upset and I guessed that the atmosphere had been rather tense for a few minutes. In any case, there seemed to be no real problem of violence or fare evasion. I and the other drivers who had gathered confirmed that the cabbie had been paid.

I then volunteered to take the lady passenger home. She didn't look to be more than mildy intoxicated, and I reckoned I could handle her if she turned violent. The whole thing seemed to have been a genuine misunderstanding.

Sometimes passengers think that the cabbie is taking them the long way or the wrong way. Sometimes they are right. And sometimes cabbies think that the passenger doesn't have a clue, and isn't going to pay them.

It's not their fault, really, but cabbies who aren't long-term residents have problems with communication and culture. The passenger makes a bit of a joke, I laugh. An African driver will probably laugh as well, picking up on the emotion. But for some reason Asian drivers are more serious, and get prickly. If they can't understand a comment, they might think it's aimed at them.

Yeah, I know, gross generalisations there, but that seems to be how it goes. And when a driver gets prickly, the passenger often reacts badly and the situation escalates. I dare say that a lot of fare evasion goes on because the passenger reckons the driver is a prick and doesn't deserve payment. Wrong as that is, I can understand how it happens.

Me, I just smile and laugh, and it's patently obvious to the passenger that my aim is to get them home quickly, comfortably, cheaply and pleasantly. I have very few problems.

The lady got in beside me, and off we went. After an initial wrong turn, we found the street, a tricky little place where I had to make a u-turn and go down a service road, and pulled up outside her house.

"I just paid twenty dollars," she said. Uh-oh. She hadn't given me anything. I hadn't even put the meter on.

"There's no charge," I said. "Glad to get you home safely."

And she leant over and kissed me.