It’s 5 pm on Friday, you hail a cab at Homer and Nelson downtown Vancouver, and ask the cabbie to take you to the Plaza 500 Hotel at 12th and Cambie. The taxi driver advises you that the traffic situation on the Cambie bridge is a nightmare and it’s a better idea to go around BC place or take the Granville bridge. It’s a 10 dollar taxi ride and the driver says to you that he can do it for $12 dollars including tip if he goes his way, it’ll be faster and he the driver will also be able to keep working.

You’ve been watching CTV, and are up to speed with all the propaganda that is going down about cab drivers being cheats. Making flat rates, ripping people off – the despicable state of affairs of the Vancouver Taxi Industry as CTV anchor Bill Good likes to call it in his sensationalized news coverage of the Vancouver cabbies.

There is this new thing called the “Taxi Bill of Rights”, and I have heard about it you tell the driver, I take this route everyday and never have had a problem with the Cambie Bridge.

The taxi driver has been bullied into taking you over the Cambie bridge.

Once you cross the midway point … viola! You’re in the midst of a traffic jam. The traffic is barely moving, a parking lot just as the Cab Driver had said. No problem you think, I’m the paying customer I’ll give this chap a 2 dollar tip and walk the rest of the way. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, the meter reads 5 dollars here’s 7 you throw the money on the front seat, and get out of the taxi. The poor taxi driver does not even have the ability to follow you. What will he say even if he could catch up to you? You paid him more than what the meter read. This is something he should have thought when he decided to become a taxi driver. It’s a part of the job.

Do Kevin Falcon, Bill Good, Rob Brown, Lisa Rossington or any other monger of this so called ‘taxi bill of rights’ have any clue how often such a situation occurs? Or how long it will take that poor taxi driver to get out of the traffic jam you left him (pun intended) Instead of bullying him, you could have taken his route, or taken alternative transportation. Now one can argue that is still the driver’s fault as he has the ability to ask for a deposit in this wonderful bill and he could have asked you for a 32 dollar deposit for the meter fare it would have taken to eventually get to the Plaza 500 from Homer and Nelson (hour in the cab over the Cambie bridge that is), but lets be realistic here. We all know that if the driver did so then the accusation that taxi drivers are rip offs would be substantiated.

Such a situation will happen more often to the taxi driver than the rider, which is why he is the best judge of the conditions. And should have the ability to decide the course of his working day. Let him do his job. Regardless of the propaganda the majority of the drivers in Vancouver are thorough professionals, who know the city like the back of their hands and know how to appease good customers. The non-frequent riders are the most troublesome!

Other examples of situations when the rider will try to impose a route upon the driver and where this so called ‘Taxi Bill of Rights’ is so flimsy:-

Going a route:-

• that is not a thoroughfare.
• that is traffic calmed.
• takes longer to travel on (traffic and red lights etc), but costs the same as the longer faster route.

Unless you’re making a stop, there is no real reason to make a fuss about a route that takes longer to travel or goes through a residential area etc. I can see if all factors are equal one asks the driver if he wouldn’t mind going a certain route because you like the view. Most riders are confident the route they take is shorter / better than the cabbies. Have you ever tried maps.google.com? Route comparisons are a slice

1st & Commercial to Seymour and Smythe via Expo Blvd is 4.5 kms or (2.75+[4.5*1.59])=$9.95 approximately with no time considerations.

1st & Commercial to Seymour and Smythe is via Venables and the Georgia viaduct is 4.9 kms or (2.75+[4.5*1.59])=$10.55 approximately with no time considerations. This route is 60 cents more if time is not considered. The only problem on the first route is the train on Venables, but is always faster and cheaper because the big long light on Terminal avenue can be avoided. FYI waiting time is 10 cents for every 15 seconds, so the 60 cent difference is negated by a short 90 second wait.

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The Taxi Bill of Rights is not a Bill or anything legal at all! It is an agreement between the Passenger Transportation Board and the taxi industry. It is only enforced in Downtown Vancouver. The popular belief is that this so called Taxi Bill of Rights has no road map or documentation to verify its validity and that the cab companies were given no say in the matter. We have repeatedly asked the BC Ministry of Transportation to give us details, reports and recommendations, minutes from meetings etc, with no positive outcome. We are still pursuing this cause and will update the site when the ministry obliges us (If they must dispel the rumors).

Downtown Vancouver BC is unique and may become difficult to service (only at times) because of the following.

1. No Public Transit after 1.20 am on Monday to Saturday and Midnight on Sundays and Holidays.
2. Bars close time is 3 am seven days of the week (Sunday – Thursday the bars on the 900 block of Granville Street are allowed to open till 3 am. Friday and Saturday bars in other parts of downtown Vancouver also have permits to operate until 3 am).
3. Friday and Saturday nights see overwhelming numbers of club goers (on an average weekend night 30,000 – 40,000 people are out and about downtown Vancouver, Gas Town, Yale Town, and in the West End of Vancouver).
4. Downtown Vancouver is adjacent to the Lions Gate bridge which is a traffic nightmare most (days until 8 pm). The time it takes to drive from downtown Vancouver over the bridge is a lot less than what it takes to get back from West and North Vancouver. This is due to the fact that we have four lanes that will merge into one (two lanes from West Vancouver marine drive and two from North Vancouver marine drive)
5. The taxi industry has a poor communication mechanism with the regulatory bodies.

Almost all traffic taxi trip rejection complaints can be attributed to the above phenomena

The following is the text of the so called Taxi Bill or Rights.
As a Taxi Passenger you have the right to:

* Be picked up and transported to your stated destination by any available on duty taxi driver
* Pay the posted rate by cash, or accepted credit card or TaxiSaver voucher
* A courteous driver who provides assistance, if requested
* Travel with an assistance dog or portable mobility aid
* A taxi that is clean, smoke free and in good repair
* Direct the route, or expect the most economical route
* A quiet atmosphere, upon request
* A detailed receipt, when requested

As a Taxi Driver you must obey all laws and have the right to refuse to transport a passenger:

* To avoid contravening a law or condition of licence

* To protect your, or any passenger’s, health or safety
* If the passenger is acting in an offensive manner
* If the passenger refuses to provide a deposit, if requested

end text of so called Taxi Bill of Rights

There are some issues that need to be addressed.

1. What is the definition of an on duty taxi driver.
2. Why should the rider have unequivocal rights to direct the route. Direct the route, or expect the most economical route.

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You lose something in a taxi. Or lets be more realistic, you think you lost something in a taxi. I say think, because if you knew exactly where you lost it, you wouldn’t have lost it in the first place. When people usually lose possessions they try and retrace their footprints through the day. Somewhere along the way comes a cab ride, and it’s always a good idea to check with the cab company (and the restaurant and your friends house etc etc). A majority of lost item callers to cab companies are not even sure if it was the correct cab company they are calling to begin with, but it doesn’t hurt to try them all.

Taxi Companies get many phone calls from people trying to do exactly this; retrace their footprints through the day, in hope of finding a misplaced item. Most of these are false alarms and the said customer calls back acknowledges that the item has been found elsewhere. The items that are never found are assumed to have been lost in the taxi. Thanks to the recent malicious propaganda against Vancouver’s taxi drivers by CTV News this assumption has become even stronger.

Now there definitely are times when one has just used something, like a wallet or a phone and you know for sure that it was there a few minutes ago in the taxi.

If you were at a restaurant and left something at the table, the restaurant still has first access as they prepare the table for the next customer. In comparison, on busy nights the taxi driver is not really turning the backseat over for the next rider, who in fact has a better chance of finding any property left behind. Most cab drivers do not check the back seat after the customer. Two areas that are not visible from the driver’s vantage are the below the seats and between the door and the seat.

What the rider finds and keeps, the taxi driver knows nothing about.

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