Bang

What a great family portrait from Mark Nixon in Clontarf,


















Most of the outfits would not have passed the cencors anyhow.

Well the Saturday went with a bang ! (in a good way for me)
It was the first all night I have worked in many months.

The problem with late nights and me is that there are an awful lot of illegal drivers at night time. Illegal in the sense that the drivers are not licenced PSV drivers. They are driving a taxi which is owned to someone else and rented out.
Then it is passed over to some cousins who drive the car 24/7. Problem is that though the car is insured, the driver is not.
Then you have the taxis from more rural areas driving into the big city to pick up the extra work at weekends.
There is nothing strange to be stopped by another taxi to be asked the whereabouts of a really big popular hotel. They have not got one clue.

Then suddenly there is a gangland shooting and the checkpoints go up.
The ghost drivers vanish, then the work comes back on to the streets.

But I am not here to complain about other people not doing their jobs, I just give you an insight into mine.

The photos did not work out well. It was a very wet night and I got 3 long runs back to back. Now I don't mind doing runs of €20 or €25 , But they do take you out of the loop for over 45 mins. In the city you could do 6 jobs in that time and make more money.(If our situation was normal)
Sometimes they just have to explain the most boring point to you in great detail, just as you have given them the change.

There was a really nasty row at one point in the night. 2 women and a guy got in, all buzzing great conversation, very friendly. Then the first girl arrives at her stop and trys to give the others money for her share of the fare. All this no No No, take it. Then as she is getting out she throws money in the door. The girl in the car screws down the window and throws the money back out.
I drive forward and when the girl picks up her money and I drive on.
On reaching the destination the fare is 15. and they have not got 15 between them.
The bloke has 10 and he really explodes. "You gave her back 10 when you didn't even have any money yourself, you stupid fucking cow" He almost hit her and jumped back into the taxi to drive the 200 yards to the bank link to get a 20.
I offered to drive him back down, but he wanted to walk home.
This couple were professional middle to upper class people.
How I ask myself had they spent every last red cent?

People live their lives in conflict. Both sides seem to need it.
I can never understand it but I often see it in the taxi and every taxi driver sees it all the time.
If you see a man beating a woman, be careful. He may be attacking a stranger.
But he may be beating up his partner ("Its all right she's my wife")
The wife will then attack you. If she doesn't she will get it when they get home. For not sticking up for him when he needed her too.
The whole thing is a vicious cycle as the children grow up damaged too.

Just as I broach on human behaviour we have had another case of massive child neglect and abuse come to light recently.At least this time the Catholic church were not the abusers.
My last run of the night was out to Malahide and the lady told me horror stories all the way about her experiences with some taxi drivers. If I told you the kind of stories she related to me you wouldn't ever get into a taxi again.
She has reported each of these incidents to the taxi regulator and no action was ever taken.
So I bent her ear for 10 minutes while I told her of my efforts, all to no avail as evryone says this is not within their remit.


I hope it is not you dear friend who ends up dead..

I tried to prevent this,,I will put it in your obituary....

No I DO like people...