Taxi Green

[skyring]

In theory, taxis are as subject to normal road rules as every other vehicle. In fact, we taxidrivers get privileges above and beyond, with the provision of reserved taxi ranks where we may loiter awaiting customers, and the ability to use bus lanes.

My practical examination focused on safety on the road, with passenger comfort, knowledge of destinations and familiarity with taxi regulations taking second place.

However, I'm discovering that taxi drivers push the envelope a bit more than normal drivers. Always in a professional way, of course, and never so as to compromise safety. However, I find myself making U-turns in city streets so as to tail onto the end of a taxi rank, or to head back in the direction I came from after dropping off a fare. I'm becoming adept at finding little places to "hover" where I can pick up a hail or drop off a passenger. Yesterday I waited outside a shop for a passenger who was inside buying wine for a dinner party, and I had to move backwards and forwards in the crowded car park to deal with traffic, without actually taking a park myself.

Or there was the elderly man I collected from a retirement home and drove to an all-night chemist so he could have some medication prepared. Poor bloke, he could only move with the aid of a walker and was in obvious pain, though he did his best to make conversation. At the shops, there was no safe place to let him off, so I pulled into a disabled zone where there was room to have the door wide open while I assembled his walker and helped him out, assisting him up over the kerb. I saw him safely into the chemist, but as I pulled out, a genuine disabled driver came in beside me and shot me such a dirty look.

I'm torn between obeying the letter of the law and the need for practicality, so I find myself exploring grey areas where I previously would not have ventured. Obviously it was illegal of me to use a disabled zone without a permit, but the alternative was to let an elderly man make a slow and painful progress a hundred metres along a night street. I think in such a case, I would be foolish and heartless to stick to the letter of the law.

It's also a matter of practicality. If a passenger is in a hurry to get somewhere, I feel their needs, but I am also mindul of speed limits, particularly in the gloaming, when kangaroos cross busy roads to get to feeding areas. So I might set the cruise control a few kilometres over the limit. Within the "tolerance factor" of the speed cameras.

I also find myself nudging orange lights a bit further than normal. I am not alone in this, and amongst my brethren and the informed onlookers, orange lights are known as "taxi green".

But for all that, I can feel myself becoming a more confident and competent driver. I listened with keen attention to the lessons from the experienced cabbies on road safety and common errors. Driving with my fingers (and eyes) busy on the MDT is a no-no. It's one thing to glance at the display to read a broadcast message or to assess the state of the taxi ranks on the text map display, but browsing around looking for my next job is perilous. I don't want to look up and find a kangaroo in my lap.

Assessing the state of an intersection is another skill I'm learning. Or learning to assess it with a finer eye, more to the point. I know how quick my cab is, how good the brakes are, and I might now go through an intersection where I would once have stopped and waited for a longer break in the traffic. This is actually a common cause of accidents amongst cabbies. Not because they make a mistake and collide with other traffic speeding through an intersection, but they will judge an intersection safe, put the foot down, and go smack into the rear of the car ahead, whose driver, though having more time and space, has decided to stop and peer nervously up and down the street.

In other news, I completed my paperwork for my first week and handed it to the owner at his workshop in Fyshwick. As I expected, he's a gentleman, keen to pass on useful and practical advice, generous in praise and encouragement, and obviously runs an efficient shop. I plugged my figures into a spreadsheet and noticed that I was earning more and getting a better rate per kilometre than the day driver. I asked the boss about this and he confirmed that night shifts are more lucrative. Certainly when I was out jockeying with Mike, I found that work during the middle of the day was reasonably scarce. I also browsed through a stack of driver tax reports awaiting collection, and although it may well be that the more regular drivers had all collected their reports, I'm certainly on track to earn more than a lot of drivers.

Of course, this may be a function of doing six shifts in a week, notionally about seventy odd hours a week. Perhaps other drivers are not quite so keen!

A highlight yesterday was pulling into the main city rank and finding a well-known public figure awaiting a lift. He flashed me a brilliant smile as he entered the cab and we chatted a bit about Canberra and Tasmania on the way to the Senate. He impressed me by treating me as another human being. Too many people in positions of power treat "the little people" as mere conveniences. I might not like his political beliefs, in fact I think many of them are plain wrong, but I respect him for strongly presenting his views and those of his constituency. He, and everybody else in the place, has several tens of thousands of people whom they represent, and they serve at the pleasure of those people.

I won't say who he was, but there's a hint in the title of this piece.

Crossposted to canberracabbie.