Cowboys of the cab industry get their comeuppance
One thing I learned about the taxi industry, after 15 years driving for it, is that it is unburdened by either self-awareness or shame. Take, for example, the Taxi Council of Queensland’s recent claim that Uber – the ride-share app that’s happily eating its lunch – is a potential haven for sexual predators which the industry rejects.
Pardon? My observation is that it’s next to impossible to get rejected by the taxi industry, at least in my home state of Queensland. Drivers are like gold; keeping bums behind the wheel is all that counts as the cab cartel – once as convinced as Kodak that the digital thing would never catch on – faces up to its own mortality.
It’s not as if the mainstream industry doesn’t have its own safety issues. Just punch “taxi sexual assault” into any search engine. In Victoria, the Institute of Forensic Medicine identified 25 cases over a three-year period. Most of the victims were heavily intoxicated. Two were intellectually disabled.
I have lost count of the number of my female friends who won’t have anything to do with taxis after being scared off by drivers who (a) suggested there might be other ways of paying their fare, or (b) who loitered around their front doors with intent, or (c) upbraided them for being out alone without their husbands.… Read more..
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