Follow up to some long forgotten rants about taxi’s
THE TAXI industry in Ireland has changed dramatically over the past 10 years. According to figures from the Commission for Taxi Regulation, there were 4,218 taxis in 2000, before deregulation, and on January 1st this year there were 21,139. The face of the industry has also changed, becoming multi-ethnic in the intervening years, writes FIONA GARTLAND
During the boom years, although there were tensions as numbers grew and as more nationalities entered the industry, there was enough work to provide a living for most. However, the recession has seen a sharp drop in business for taxi drivers, competition for work has intensified and racial tensions are on the rise.
Anecdotes about African drivers are widespread within the industry (I know – my husband drives a taxi): the driver who was seen abandoning the taxi at a Garda checkpoint; the driver who needed directions from his passenger to get from Abbey Street to St Stephen’s Green; the driver who took the long way from Dublin airport to Drumcondra; the driver who did not have any identification displayed on his dashboard.
Some Irish-born drivers also complain that newcomers break long-established unwritten protocols, which include not overtaking another taxi to pick up a fare or to try to get ahead on a rank, and leaving a fare to the taxi behind you if it has just let you out of a side road.
How did they print these lines:
Other foreign drivers have complained about having cigarette smoke blown in their faces or of being referred to as “the nigger”.
EDWARD MANGAN HAS worked in the taxi industry “for many years”. He regularly operates out of the O’Connell Street rank. He says that drivers are frustrated and angry about the way the industry has gone, and that they are concerned at the number of illegal drivers they believe to be operating without licences. “In the next two or three years I’d be shocked if there is not people physically assaulted on the ranks, there’s so much frustration.”
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It is too easy to rent a taxi, complete with roof sign, without having to show a public service vehicle licence, he says. Or one legitimate driver gets a taxi and then lends it to his friends along with his photo ID. “It is hard to say this and not sound racist, but the majority of coloured people look the same to our eye, so it’s easy for them to share licences,” he says.
irishtimes.com
Its like something out of the deep south – “You tell them boys we need some Klan down here in Canton” etc. Coloured people etc LOL!!