"You overcharged me twenty cents"

A great deal of the taxi work you do in Canberra involves taking public servants to and from meetings and taking them from the airport to their home in the evenings after they've had meetings in urban and remote Australia.  When the government is paying for the taxi ride all public servants want is to get home via the fastest route; price does not matter.  However, there are exceptions to the rule.

One time I took home an employee from the Defence Material Organisation to his apartment on Corranderk St near the City.  He was one of these types that thought he was better than everyone else, especially a taxi driver like myself.  He wasn't interested in chatting; all he wanted was to be taken home.  That's fair enough, I appreciate that sometimes people have long days given they have to get up at 5.00am in the morning don't end up getting home till 9.30pm.  But things started to get interesting when I dropped him off. 

The fare came to $22.70 and I swiped his card on the EFTPOS machine and accidently typed in $22.90 instead of $22.70.  He checked the docket and looked up at the meter.  The conversation went something like this.

DMO employee:  You've overcharged me 20 cents.  The fare says $22.70 and you've charged me $22.90.  What, so you overcharged everyone 20 cents to make an extra buck mate, do you?
Me:  Sorry mate, it was an accident.  I accidently pressed the wrong button.
DMO employee: Well I want my 20 cents back.
Me:  I can give you it in cash but I can't put it back on your card.  I'm sure it's not going to blow the Defence Budget of whatever billions a year.
DMO employee:  Well I want a cheque from you, payable to the Defence Material Organisation for 20 cents.  Please have a letter accompanying the cheque explaining why they have received the cheque.
Me:  Sure mate.

I'm not going to write the cheque.  These overpaid public servants can bugger off.

I snatched her handbag...

Some family members have told me not to tell this story.  I'm a little bit embarrassed by it and it came at a time when I was inexperienced and a little naïve about taxi driving.

For a while there I loved Manuka rank.  It seemed to deliver good jobs but gradually I began to realise that I had just been lucky as most jobs are small jobs to the surrounding suburbs.  My two spewers were both from this rank so now I boycott it.

One night during my first couple of months of taxi driving I was waiting there at Manuka rank and a lady, about 55 or older, hobbled towards the taxi.  She got in and asked to be driven to a street in Yarralumla.  As we drove along things were going nicely and then she asked me to clean my windscreen as she couldn't see where she was going.  I did this but then she got all angry and asked me to pull over.  I did so and she started to get out.  I requested payment of the fare and she told me that she wasn't paying the fare and that I had been rude.  As she got out she said, "Sue me!"

It had been a really bad night, I had hardly made any money and something snapped in me.  I should have just let it ride but I got out of the taxi and demanded my $10.  She refused.  And this is where I did the wrong thing.  I grabbed her handbag and in the process she fell over.  As I walked off with her bag, she yelled at me, "My keys are in there."  And then she realised that she could not get up.  She called after me, "Ï'm really sorry, can you help me up and drive me home?"  I approached her, helped her up and led her back into the taxi.

Back in the taxi her whole demeanour changed.  She was quite chatty and friendly.  And then I got the question, it is the question that most foreign taxi drivers hate.  "Which country are you from?" she asked politely.  I was a little bewildered by this question as I had spoken in my broad Australian accent and I thought my blue eyes and brown hair would indicate that I had Anglo-Saxon heritage.  For some reason I lied and responded, "Afghanistan."  I didn't put on a foreign accent, I just spoke normally and in any case, I couldn't even do one foreign accent if my life depended on it.  Then she asked what my name was.  "Muhammed." I responded.  She then asked whether I was Christian or Muslim and I said I was Christian.  She then said that Muhammed was an unusual name for a Christian.  I thought I had been caught out but she ignored it and asked whether I was educated.  I said "No."  She then went on to ask why I don't educate myself to give myself a brighter future.  I replied that I had a wife and two kids to support and that I couldn't afford the time to study as I had to work seven days a week to support them. 

We pulled up at her townhouse and then she said she was so sorry for being so rude.  I responded that there had just been a misunderstanding.  The fare came to about $15.  She pulled out a $50 note and gave it to me saying that maybe I could buy my family a nice meal with the money.  I thanked her and said I will.  I helped her with her bags, taking them to the front door and then she hugged me and wished me all the best.

"People are strange, stranger than strange." - The Doors.  

Taxi driving: how much do we make?

A few times I have had public servants in my taxi asking me how much money I make.  Typically, they are washed up and pissed off APS6 employees who have worked the same job for ten years and are looking for an out.  The first thing I ask them is whether they have a mortgage.  A typical reply is "Yes".  Then I ask them how much they think I make and I indicate that I work approximately 70 hours a week.  Most of them think it would be around $20 an hour and so they say $1500 a week before tax.  This is when I laugh.  Most of them are quite astonished when I say that it works out at about half that.  They very soon start to realise that there is no way they can pay their mortgage as a taxi driver.  Last year I made $38,000, worked 6 nights a week, 11 hours each night, a couple of spewers, ten runners and thirty dickheads.  But most of the time I was having fun.  It certainly beats filing, reading emails, dealing with office politics, pushing paper and just generally doing nothing as an APS6 employee.

So if we look at the average night and day taking of a taxi, I think people will be quite surprised.  Remember that these figures are the total takings of a taxi, and the taxi driver takes half of it.

DAY SHIFT

Monday - $260
Tuesday - $265
Wednesday - $270
Thursday - $275
Friday - $280
Saturday - $220
Sunday - $270

TOTAL: $1840

So if I driver works 7 days a week (77 hours) they will make approximately $920 a week before tax.  After GST is taken out they make $836.  And after PAYG is taken out they make $727 a week.  Not a real good hourly rate when you work 77 hours - approximately $9.50 an hour.  Most drivers work 6 days a week - Monday to Saturday and make approximately $650 after tax is taken out.

NIGHT SHIFT

Night drivers generally fair better because you make better money on a Friday and Saturday night.

Monday - $240
Tuesday - $250
Wednesday - $270
Thursday - $300
Friday - $450
Saturday $425
Sunday - $250

TOTAL: $2185

So if a driver works 7 nights a week (and there are plenty that do) he will make $1092 a week.  After GST and PAYG is taken out he will make approximately $832 a week.  A better hourly rate than a day driver ($832/77 = $10.80).

Drivers in maxi taxis and 7 seaters have dramatically better income on a Friday and Saturday nights.  They can make up to $900 on the meter in a single night.  A few drivers work the maxi taxis and 7-seaters on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights and make the same amount per week as drivers who work six nights in normal taxis.  These are the lucky ones and they usually do some wheeling and dealing to get these nights in these kind of taxis.

The tight industry

For a while, I thought about leasing my own taxi.  I had enough money to buy a second hand taxi and to pay some of the running costs.  In other words, I had enough to make a start.  So I sat down and worked out how much extra it was going to make me.  In a good year, it would make me an extra $5,000 and in a bad year or if something went wrong with the taxi like the transmission or the engine I would probably be down $5,000.  A great number of people think that taxis are too expensive and that taxi drivers and operators just print money.  Let's look at how much a taxi makes and the running costs.

During an average 12 hour shift a driver will do approximately 13 jobs and the average price of the job will be $20.  So a taxi makes approximately $260 a shift.  Two shifts a day equals $520.  Multiply by 365 days a year and you have approximately  $190,000.

An operator has to split the revenue 50:50 with the driver so they make $95,000 per year from a cab.  But now lets look at the yearly expenses a cab has.

Taxi Plate Lease - $25,000
Base (Taxi Company) fees - $20,500
Taxi registration and CPI - $10,000
Car Insurance - $7,500
Fuel - $17,500
Workers Compensation Insurance - $3,000
Maintenance costs - $5,000

Total running costs - $88,500
Profit: $95,000 - $88,500 = $6,500

In a perfect world you make $6,500 a year from a cab if you are an operator.  But this assumes you have a driver for every shift, nothing majorly goes wrong with your cab and that business is average.  If business is bad, you could lose money.

The pros and cons of being a taxi driver

After a few weeks in my new cleaning job, I have a greater perspective on the pros and cons of being a taxi driver.  I worked on Saturday (day shift) and made very little money, doing small fares from the National Gallery of Australia and probably spent more money on coffee and cigarettes than the commission I actually made during the day.  Earlier in the day I spent some time at the Airport chatting to other drivers and all they did was whinge about how bad things are.  I have little time for these whingers - they could save up their money, get a truck licence or a security licence and earn more money but they still expect to make millions from taxi driving.  You never make millions from taxi driving - you only make enough to survive.  You learn to shop at Kmart and Costco and grab $1 coffees at 7-Eleven and to bring your own lunch.

I'll start with the cons of taxi driving and end with the pros.

The cons of taxi driving

Some drivers expect when they first start that they are going to make $20-$25 an hour and then they get a shock when it is closer to $14 an hour unless you work a Friday or Saturday night.  Obviously the first con is the remuneration and conditions.  You only make half of what the taxi makes during a shift - on a Saturday day shift that can be as little as $6 an hour.  And there is no such thing as sick pay and holiday pay, let alone an allowance for superannuation.  If you do a day that is half cash, then that is good because you can take your commission from that.  But if all your payment are EFTPOS then you have to collect your commission from your taxi owner at a later date.  Some operators are good and pay you weekly while some pay every three weeks if it all.  You see drivers at the airport waiting for owners to turn up so they can collect their part of the commission, and then the owners see them, U-turn and piss off out of the airport.

Passengers/customers can be a real con too.  Some do runners or worse, throw up in your cab.  A great number whinge about the fare or if you are not from Australia, direct racial abuse at you.  A run of bad customers can really destroy your shift.

The pros of taxi driving

A run of good passengers can really make your shift.  Interesting people who tell you about your lives, people that tip well, people who really appreciate what you do for them.  When you have a shift of these kind of people you forget about the shit money you are making and just enjoy it.  You get to meet people - a great number of taxi drivers I know have met their girlfriends or just plain old fuck buddies from driving a cab.

The freedom is fantastic too.  You get to choose where you want to go, you get to choose when you want your break.  And above all, the longer you spend on the streets, the wiser you get and the more money you make.  Even though, as an old timer said to me "Taxi driving is 10% class, 90% ass".

Tipping, the numbers game and the end of my taxi career (for now)

Tipping

Tipping is a funny thing in Australia, it is not customary as it is in the USA but if it is done it is usually a sign of good service.  I usually tip 10-15% at restaurants, particularly Asian and Indian restaurants where the price of the meal is less than $50 dollars for two people and both of you have excellent mains, dessert and entrée.  If the price of the meal comes to $48, I usually give them $55 as a gesture of thanks for excellent food and service.  Tipping in taxis is a bit of a funny business, some people tip well, others don't.  I really hate the people who tip you small amounts - anything less than $1.  It really is an insult.  What can you get for less than a dollar these days?  Nothing, absolutely nothing.  If they round up a fare to the nearest dollar so they don't have to receive excess shrapnel, then that is fine.  But if the fare come to $20.00 and the customer says make it $20.60 then that really annoys me because it is an insult to me as a service provider and I lose change that I may need later.

The numbers game

Every taxi in Canberra has a number plate that starts with TX.  Most of them have a three digit number after the TX, say TX476 that I use to regularly drive.  The Indians and the Pakistanis are very superstitious about the number of each taxi in the ACT.  They say you add up the numbers of the taxi number plate on each taxi to give you a single digit number.  For example, for TX476 you would add up the 4 and 7 and the 6 to give you 17 and then you would add 1 plus 7 from the 17 to give you a single digit of 8.  Some of the Indians and the Pakistanis are so superstitious that if they are offered to drive a taxi and it is an unlucky number for them, they will refuse to drive the taxi.  Some of the taxi operators have quite a difficult job trying to match drivers to the correct numbered car.  Most operators are prepared to do this because they know the Indians and the Pakistanis will work long hours for them but operators really like Aussie and Asian drivers who do the long hours because they don't give two hoots about the taxi number.

The end of my taxi career (for now)

I will lose my licence very soon which means I can't drive for six months.  I can't get a worker's licence to just drive taxis.  It is just too bad so sad.  I was very unlucky to lose points.  It is a little ironic as one driver called me grandpa because of the way I drive.  Fortunately, I have another job to go to and I can ride there so I will still be able to pay for rent, food and cigarettes.  I will miss cruising about, chatting to customers to find out what is going on in Canberra.  I've enjoyed writing the blog as well and over 500 people have actually viewed it!  Meter off boys and girls.  That will be $350, thanks.  I wish.

The hate industry

After 18 months working in the taxi industry you start to learn a few things.  The key players in the industry: drivers, operators (taxi owners) and Aerial (the taxi company) all hate each other.

Drivers hate operators because they give them shit cars to drive and always take a long time to pay drivers the money that is owing to them.  Drivers hate the Aerial because they issue them with penalties for being out of uniform and rejecting shit jobs.

Operators hate drivers because they don't make enough money for them and treat their cars like rally cars.  Operators hate Aerial because they take their cars off the road when they are not up to Aerial's high standards and charge ridiculous base fees. 

Aerial hates drivers because they continually provide poor customer service and get Aerial in trouble with the ACT Government.  The poor Aerial complaints officer has a pile of complaints every Monday morning after poor service by drivers on Friday and Saturday nights.  Aerial hates operators because they fail to maintain their cars and are always whinging that there are too many taxis on the road.  (Aerial doesn't care how many taxis are on the road, the more the better because it equates to more base fees and less complaints from the public about the number of taxis at peak times.) 

Despite the hate, the players are bound together with one desire; it aint customer service and it aint the joys that taxi driving can bring the driver: it's money.