Taxi" You direct,I drive."

[joekeenan]

With dublin having more taxis than New York now! The death bell has sounded for the traditional taxi service.
Im a taxi driver in Bray and i have witnessed an explosion in the number of taxis in this small wicklow town in the last year.
People who are employed full time monday to friday in other jobs are being allowed to get licences even though,they blatantly lie about their intentions when they sign up to work a minium of 40 hours per week!.
Not enough check points are in force to weed out the chancers,Big companies will rent a taxi to a baboon if he pays the required 200 euro per week!They dont give a toss!once they get their money.
Long term the public will pay the price,"Whats new".Taxi drivers that cant speak basic english!!,Taxi drivers that Refuse short journeys!!!,Taxi drivers whos cars are dirty, and smelly!!!.Get used to being ripped off, over charged! and left to walk home, because thanks to the present governments lack of interest, this industry And the lack of enforcement of the Taxi laws, This job as a responsible public service one ,is FINISHED!!

<Mod> Moved to Transport. </Mod>

[PaintingMedium]

To be fair, you have a vested interest, all those things you mentioned were sometimes there before this explosion in numbers, I am sure they have increased with the increase in numbers but I do not think it is as bad as you make out. Yes there should be more enforcing of rules, but in my eye, more taxis, more competition, better value!

[solair]

Just to pull you up on a few points there from the perspective of a consumer:

1) It's not too long ago that I remember queuing on college green in the rain until I eventually gave up and walked 5 miles home due to a complete lack of taxis and a market that was basically a closed shop where licence plates were sold like pub licences. I also remember being stuck in similar situations in Cork, so it wasn't a uniquely Dublin city centre problem either.

2) Irish taxis have never had any standards and a small % of them were always filthy.

So please don't tell me that everything was sunshine and light before the taxi deregulation!

I agree something needs to be changed to pull up standards and enforce regulations properly, but there's no question but there's a far better (in terms of availability) taxi service now than there was before deregulation.

[alonso]

the taxi service in Dublin city before deregulation was a ************************************g disgrace, a dangerous horrible cartel of nonsense peddling rip off merchants. Now it's a lot better. The rest, my friend, is mere detail which will iron itself out if the issues are directed to the right people.

[blucey]

With dublin having more taxis than New York now! The death bell has sounded for the traditional taxi service.
Im a taxi driver in Bray and i have witnessed an explosion in the number of taxis in this small wicklow town in the last year.
People who are employed full time monday to friday in other jobs are being allowed to get licences even though,they blatantly lie about their intentions when they sign up to work a minium of 40 hours per week!.
Not enough check points are in force to weed out the chancers,Big companies will rent a taxi to a baboon if he pays the required 200 euro per week!They dont give a toss!once they get their money.
Long term the public will pay the price,"Whats new".Taxi drivers that cant speak basic english!!,Taxi drivers that Refuse short journeys!!!,Taxi drivers whos cars are dirty, and smelly!!!.Get used to being ripped off, over charged! and left to walk home, because thanks to the present governments lack of interest, this industry And the lack of enforcement of the Taxi laws, This job as a responsible public service one ,is FINISHED!!

<Mod> Moved to Transport. </Mod>

At least we can get taxi's now when needed.

[CookieMonster]

[blucey]

Class..! :mrgreen:

[HanleyS]

I've actually come round in the last few weeks to the point of view that it makes sense to cap the number of taxis in the city. The regulator should be free to decide when to put a freeze on licences to reduce numbers. There are several reasons for this.

1) Taxis are actually starting to clog up certain city streets. Stephen's Green, Dawson and Camden Streets in particular.
2) The traffic corp are having to go round clearing guys off 'ranks' because the queues are too long.
3) Competition between drivers is heating up to a dangerous level and spilling over into threatening behaviour and no doubt violence.
4) It's becoming a low wage job and no doubt will become a transitory profession if the erosion of revenues continue.
5) It will take too long for this market to 'shake-out' naturally because any fool can scrape together a few bob to give it a go and there is a steady supply of them (fools).

I never thought I would say it, but we have too may taxis. I'm unashamedly making an about turn on this. I believe the situation has changed and will continue to change as other jobs are lost.

[Cookie68]

I've actually come round in the last few weeks to the point of view that it makes sense to cap the number of taxis in the city. The regulator should be free to decide when to put a freeze on licences to reduce numbers. There are several reasons for this.

1) Taxis are actually starting to clog up certain city streets. Stephen's Green, Dawson and Camden Streets in particular.
2) The traffic corp are having to go round clearing guys off 'ranks' because the queues are too long.

I hear you!

We've gone from a situation where you would have to wait for up to two hours in the p1ssing rain to get a taxi home from the city centre.... or maybe walk half way home in order to get a taxi.... to a situation where if you are driving through town any evening the congestion is as bad as rush hour traffic because there are so many taxis driving God knows where.

I'd imagine the situation will correcty itself (without intervention) though to an optimal level.

Do hackneys still exist?

[HanleyS]

I'd imagine the situation will correcty itself (without intervention) though to an optimal level.

I think it will take years for people to learn that there is no money to be made in an over crowded market. With unemployment on the up though it only has to beat the dole.