"HI, THERE! TAXI!"

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 204, 28 August 1943, Page 4

"HI, THERE! TAXI!"

OWNERS AND PUBLIC

LONG TALE OF WOE

(By RANGITOTO.)

Many a city man has a few more shillings for the occasional o'clock session "with the boys." Many a woman finds that she can give an extra tea or two on the same spending money. Business men who liked to ride on wet mornings now get out the old umbrella and walk to the tram as a matter of course. Hundreds of afternoon and evening icard parties start earlier and break up earlier. It's so difficult to get a taxi. Passengers arriving at the railway station join for a moment in the mad scramble for the dozen or so cars on the rank. Then, unsuccessful, they pick up their bags and make uncomplainingly for the trams at the distant front entrance. The enjoyment of many a good entertainment is marred by the prospect of a comfortless ride in an overcrowded tram and a walk down a long wet street when the show is over. Fed Up, In a Big Way Many a loving couple make the farewell short and sweet, because Johnnie simply must catch that last tram —or walk! Taxis are "out"! Or, rather, too few taxis are out. All patience is exhausted in calling for one. Blessed is he who expects little in the way of taxi service, for he shall not be disappointed. , That's how it is in Auckland. Fluke a ride in a taxi-cab, utter just a suspicion of a complaint to the driver, and ten to one you'll hear all about it. No use to blame "the Yanks," the petrol shortage, the tyre shortage, the war, the manpower situation. You'll hear the truth. The man behind the wheel won't stop talking onee he gets started. He has an outsize in grievances. Even the passenger who stoutly refrains from grumbling will hear some of the story, if the driver gets half a chance. The taxi-men are fed up. In a big way. "You say you rang and couldn't get a cab, eh? Well, what do you expect, the way things are?" Well, you admit, you thought things had been improved. The new roster system, and all that. No more favouritism, no more joy-riding. Well, you know, driver, everything under control. You Feel Abashed "Don't you know that the system is just about collapsing? Don't you realise that the whole set-up has deteriorated so that you haven't anything worth calling a system? That you can't expect to get a car? 'Under control,' did you say? 'Under control.' It's easily seen that-you don't look for a taxi very often!"

The man at the wheel is so incensed that' you subside into "wellwells" or take refuge in sympathetic duckings.

"Look here, boss, how would you like it if the Government, some blooming Minister, put a man in charge of your business and ran it for you, right or wrong? Now, how would you like that?"

Well, of course, you would take a pretty dim view of it.

"Exactly! Well, tnat's what's happened to our business. We ownerdrivers haven't a say in the conduct of our own business. It's run on a bureaucratic system. We must do this and do that, whether we like it or not. If we pass a stand we can be chased by an inspector. Prosecuted. • Fined. We've got inspectors lurking all the time. Gestapo, that's what I call it. Like it or not. Gestapo, that's what it is. They fling a system at us. 'There's the system,' they say. Work it.' And we know it won't work. We know it's not going to work. Nothing will work if the men concerned in it feel that way about it.

. . . But you give us a say in the running of our own business, just as they have in the south, and you'll see a change. A big change for the better. We owner-drivers have a scheme that's worth ten of this rigid, creaking thing that get's us nowhere." A Familiar Story If your use taxis at all, that's a familiar story. And, meantime, the Minister of Transport is busy saying that everything is lovely, or so very nearly lovely that only the carping critics, the perennially and politically dissatisfied, can pick holes. After all, there's a war on, isn't there? And look what they have to put up with in Russia, in England! Why, even in Timbuctoo, they'll be feeling the pinch, as likely as not. But the average owner-driver, the man who has fought and won the long-drawn battle to buy and possess a car, doesn't see it that way. He can see only that he has no say in the running of his own business. He's convinced that he could make things better, and that the Minister is determined not to let him. He says, in effect: "Fair enough, then, if that's the Minister's attitude. We'll abide so strictly by the letter of the law that Auckland might just as well not have a taxi sei'vice at all. We'll give good and faithful service to the sick. We'll even break the regulations to oblige an aged customer stricken by infirmity. We'll run any uneconomic mileage, at any hour, for a maternity case— but, that done, we'll abide by the regulations."

And woe betide the would-be joyrider who rings with some tale that s untrue!

The Roster System

First of all, the owner-drivers believe they could improve the roster system. To-day it is based on a complicated, interlocking plan whereby certain cars operate from 6.30 a.m. till 3.30 p.m., others again from 3.30 till 11.30, some from 6 p.m. till 2 a.m., and about 15 of the 300 cabs are on the "dog watch," which is from 11.30 p.m. till 7.30 a.m. Experienced men will say that, under existing conditions, one could count on the fingers of one hand the jobs to be done between 3 and 6 a.m. Every cab must do its share of roster work. In one group the quota is three days in each quarter month in the other it is, four. . After that, cabs may run on the free-lance system, which is to say that drivers n jay begin and finish at times suitable to themselves.

. How the rcster system could be improved is an owner - driver's secret, not to be revealed until thev have been given a share in the direction of their business. Even the present system of free-lancing, tied as it is to direction from a central office is uneconomic, they claim. One driver instanced a day of five hours with 63 miles running, plus nine hours, for 37/. All the "personality," all goodwill, has been abolished, the drivers say. Iney can no longer work their favourite stands, where they knew their customers by their Christian narnes. i humorless rigidity. They don t like it. It won't work. And I <W rned well not going to work! bull, even in Timbuctoo, people must be feeling the pinch, these days! '