June 01, 2004

PIZZA VS. PASTRIES

Adrian the Sydney cabbie observes events outside News Ltd headquarters:

A pizza guy on a bike arrived with 20 pizzas plus bottles of drink. It’s a party! He told me it was a regular order, I think - his English was shithouse. By comparison, over in the glass towers on Sussex, Fairfax night staff receive trays of pastries. There’s something symbolic about this but I’m too tired to work it out ...

In other taxi news:

Sydney taxi drivers will strike later this month, angry at the NSW government's new rules stopping them from knowing their destination.

Posted by Tim Blair at June 1, 2004 07:23 PM
Comments

Oh, my. So only amnesiac taxi drivers are now welcome?

Posted by: dazed at June 1, 2004 at 08:27 PM

First they make cabbies pay $200000 + for a piece of tin that says they can drive a cab and then they won't let them know what the job is before they take it on. What sort of country do we live in!!

Surely the cab companies are capable of managing their business without the government legislating how they are going to take fares.

Posted by: amortiser at June 1, 2004 at 09:27 PM

If the cabbies go on strike, there'll be strike-breakers brought in. The strike breakers will not know the way to even the best-known Sydney landmarks.

It will also be impossible to get a cab at any time in the afternoon or early morning.

And no-one will notice the difference!

Posted by: The Mongrel at June 1, 2004 at 10:19 PM

oh rats. at first glance i thought this was "pizza vs. pasties"...

sigh

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at June 1, 2004 at 11:25 PM

Perhaps I'm confused, or else the NSW gov't is. If a cabbie doesn't know (isn't ALLOWED to know?) his destination, doesn't that make it rather difficult to, y'know, get there?

Somebody notify Missing Persons...

Posted by: mojo at June 2, 2004 at 01:45 AM

Twenty pizzas on a bike? Good heavens!

Posted by: Robert Bauer at June 2, 2004 at 04:47 AM

I live in Washington DC and they have a rule like this. The point is for the cab driver to take whoever gets in the cab. It is done here to make sure the cab drivers will take the person to less desirable locations, like where I live. If you have to tell the driver where you want to go before you get in, they may never let you get in the cab. I know this happens to me, even with the law like that here.

Bart

Posted by: Bart at June 2, 2004 at 09:01 AM

Which is furthermore related to the
1) Government limitation of how many taxi licenses there are (especially in NYC) and
2) Government regulation of uniform rates for taxis, no matter where they're going.

Combine 1 and 2, and you'll have a big problem with taxis not wanting to go to certain areas.

Posted by: John Thacker at June 2, 2004 at 12:45 PM

And why on earth even a tax driver be forced to take someone to any destination they do not wish to take fare for.

Thacker is correct: licence fees, fixed pricing, sundry regulations are: a scam, and serve only fat god alsmighty interfering leftoid govts.

The whole thing is a bloody joke.

Posted by: d at June 2, 2004 at 05:57 PM