WTF is up with cabs in Halifax? How the fuck am I supposed to be able to find an available taxi when they don’t turn their lights off when they have a passenger?
This article appears in Sep 4-10, 2008.
Taxis
WTF is up with cabs in Halifax? How the fuck am I supposed to be able to find an available taxi when they don’t turn their lights off when they have a passenger?
Leave a comment
Welcome to halifax, where the cab light is only there to let you know he’s not a pizza delivery guy. See the phone number on the light? Call that, tell them where you are and you may get a ride. No phone? No problem, go to one of the many taxi stands with waiting cabs and hop in. Or go to any hotel and most grocery stores and you can get a direct line to a cab most of the time. Only rarely, and usually at the discretion of the cabbie, will you catch a cab by hailing it. Most cabs go where the dispatcher tells them to. It’s a strange and different system from pretty much everywhere else, but it sometimes works. Good luck out there.
Although, by calling, you get dispatchers iuncapable of entering your information into their new-fangled computer system, thereby sitting around for 45 minutes desperately trying to hail one of said cabs driving around with a light on…Maybe they should talk to cabbies in Toronto who a) know how to turn off the light, b) know how to use the computer system c) have about 100 more drivers for every one out here…
Taxis in Halifax are forced to keep their roof lights on by legislation that was passed a few years ago. Whether occupied or not, if that taxi is working they must have their roof lights turned on (..at night of course).
Omg those things are lights!
Welcome to Nova Scotia where the desire to do things differently outweighs the need to be efficient. In other words, we have no common sense.
i agree lily, that makes no sense what so ever. EVERY other city does it right so that people dont get hurt. So many people think they are flagging down a cab that is availible, and zoooooooooom, it races by with a cluster of folk. Leave it up to halifax to fuck it up.Which leads me to another gripe. How much gas do you think cabbies would save if they allowed Halifax Cabbies to pick up in dartmouth when they are over there. Take a cab from downtown to cole harbor, that fucker drives back empty, if he does that say…… 3 times a week, that is like $20 bucks in gas for him.