T is for Taxi Drivers

This might sound a bit rich coming from me, but taxi drivers are a bunch of moaners. I mean, at least they have their jobs. Their argument is that there are too many taxis on the streets these days and that this is endangering their livelihood. They’re right, Dublin is absolutely teeming with taxis, but the solution is not regulation. Before deregulation in 2001 I’m told it was a total nightmare trying to hail a taxi in Dublin. Now the tables have turned and it’s the taxi drivers who sit and wait restlessly for a fare. I say let them sit there and if they don’t like it they can pack in the roof sign and exit the market.

Alternatively they can join a taxi company that, for a small fee, will direct them to the nearest fare and save them the trouble of scouring the streets for customers. Their margins might be smaller but it’s a small price to pay for a service that should ensure that the jobs keep coming and the fare counter keeps ticking over. 

I was in a taxi the other day and the driver was complaining that business was slow on account of the fact that people just aren’t going out as much as they were in the boom times. I told him that was unfortunate, but I wasn’t really thinking about him or his peers — I was thinking about all the men and women who had lost their jobs and could no longer afford the simple pleasure of a night out.