edders23 wrote:
No he shouldn't have done it BUT is this driver not liable to being charged with theft through keeping?
Yes, that's an interesting point, and I was assuming that maybe the trip had started, and thus the driver kept a fiver to cover the fare before it was aborted, but it's not clear from the story if that was the case.
But if the trip had started, whether it was legitimate for the driver to keep a fiver depends on why it didn't go ahead:
- if the driver just changed his mind once they'd got going, for no apparent reason, the punter well within their rights to stop the trip without recompense to the driver.
- or maybe new information came to light once they'd got going, such as a detour, or the passenger had misstated his destination. Then driver within his rights to ask for more, and if passenger wouldn't play ball, driver entitled to retain cash for the fare elapsed to that point
Been there, done that blah, blah.
Well recall one a couple of years ago, good run going to Freuchie, a village in the middle of Fife.
Farmer type, pished and fell asleep, and was giving me directions while half awake. This added several unnecessary miles to the fare, and his farm was actually several miles past the village anyway. So a double detour, in effect
I asked him for more than I'd quoted because of that (and still well below what was on the meter) and he suddenly became very sober, blew a fuse, and when he jumped out I thought for a moment he was going to reappear with a shotgun, or something like that
Luckily he just kept on shouting the odds, and I drove away, but won't forget that one in a hurry
