What is it with Halifax cabbies?! I don’t own a car and am at the point – after 13 years of living on the peninsula – of walking any distance (tired, freezing +/or drunk) rather than risking the chance of getting the 8/10 cabbies who are self-righteous, opinionated, red-necked arseholes. Is it my fault you can’t change a $20 bill? This is YOUR business! Your car stinks and you have your window fully open at minus 10 degrees; is it so unreasonable for me to ask nicely for you to close it? Is it my fucking fault your car door is broken and you have to (“grumble, grumble”) get our of your hovel to let me out? Do you really think it’s okay to park your taxi over a crosswalk? I DON’T want to hear your unsolicited political opinions or your bad (often sexist, racist) jokes! I JUST want a fucking ride from A to B without grief. Is that not what I’m paying you for?!
—Tired of Halifaxism
This article appears in Mar 5-11, 2009.
wow, I’ve taken a few cabs before and have never come across this. I’ll admit some drive like a loony and one completely ignored the directions I gave (so as to avoid the traffic we ended up hitting) but overall they’ve been fine. Perhaps I keep getting the 20% (your figure, not mine) that are good at what they do but I doubt it.
As for changing a $20, this is the second time this came up so I’m thinking this is becoming an issue more and more. As they know they’re going to get paid at the end of the trip and almost all machines only spit out twenties, how can they not be anticipating this???
From my experiences, most cabbies are able bodied people, but on occasion, I’ve run into the rats nest that is the shitty cab ride, the shitty opinion of said driver, the lousy smelling breath, the over bearing opinions of the driver. For the ones that act in a manner of decorum kudos to you. You might deserve a tip.
The head of the taxi commission takes these sort of complaints. Call the HRM call centre and they’ll direct you. OP, to your point of the window being open. Do you really think the cab driver wants to smell your boozed-up ass? I know when I come home from a night of drinking, the fiancee boots me off because I smell like a brewery mixed with eau de skank (especially if I end up in Pacifico), and she can normally tolerate my smelly ass. Cabbies as well are talkative because, well, that’s what you do when you work with people. We’re not all anti-social like like you. Maybe you should lock yourself in the basement and play WoW all your life.
I’ve had loads of troubles with cabbies too… one guy started saying something about “some girls do ‘favors’ as payment” to me at 4am. I got out of that cab so fast!
Make sure you get a foreign cabbie or immigrant cabbie. They are usually the best.