Taxi Driver Online

Cabbies’ vomit tax: What price for puke?


Last week the Tribune reported on Chicago cabdrivers’ most recent wish list: They’re asking Mayor Daley for a 22% rate increase, permission to charge for services such as phone dispatches and credit card swipes, and most important, the go-ahead to charge woozy passengers a $50 fine for upchucking inside their taxis.

That last item had me wondering, What would someone have to pay you to clean up a total stranger’s vomit? Sure, we’ve all been there: You stumble into a cab after bar time, the car lurches into motion and suddenly all the lights outside bleed into a dizzying swirl of color. Your throat tightens, you get that strange taste in your mouth and…with a little luck, you get the window open in time and offend only a few innocent bystanders. But if you don’t, your driver’s left with one hell of a mess to clean up.

Dmitry Samarov, a driver for Yellow cabs, thinks the tax is a great idea—in theory. “Usually [passengers] will give you money if they’re coherent enough but a standard fee? It’s just not enforceable,” he says. “You try demanding $50 from someone who’s already wasted; that’s just going to make them combative. You’d have to call the police to enforce it every time; it would be an incredible hassle.”

As for the price, Samarov thinks it’s mostly fair, depending on how severe the offense. “I once had a guy give me $40 extra when his girlfriend puked; that was nice. But another time, someone puked so quietly, I didn’t hear them—I only realized it when the next person got in and stepped in it.” One of the worst cases he’s witnessed involved a female passenger who directed him through the McDonald’s drive-though late one night. “That strawberry milkshake didn’t stay down more than 5 minutes; it was a bloodbath of dairy back there,” he says. The $50 fine wouldn’t begin to cover the clean-up on that one, he says.

As for the fare hike and other cabby demands, Samarov says they’re long overdue, pointing out that Chicago still has some of the cheapest fares in the country. “It’s been four-and-a-half years [since the last hike]; we were promised one last spring,” he says. “The gas surcharge we got only confuses people; riders just think they’re being screwed so they tend to take it out of your tip.”

I read this a few days ago on my alerts, but did not post such a sick article.

What absolutely amazes me is that they don't have a soilage charge at all.

Crazy!!

It's as if being sick in a vehicle is just normal over there & the cabbie should accept it.

But then we are talking about Yanksville, so there standards are rather younger than ours!!



Perhaps in another 500 or 1,000 years they will have gained some culture over there.

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last one i had was a group of 6 girls taken into brum, 5 made it out of broad street at 2am (6th one pulled or got pulled)

the smallest of the group sat upfront feeling "unwell", she was about 5 stone wet through and did a very good impression of Linda Blair in The Exorcist, except (thankfully) she kept it pointed 1 way, out the open window as we passed through Erdington, she must have lost half a stone at least

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

Worst offender I had Barfed whilst moving at speed with his head half in and half out of the open Front Passenger seat window of my Minibus.....It was spread Fanshaped along all the outside...and fan shaped all along the inside...it caked every customer behind him to a greater or lesser extent.

He gave me 10 quid extra for that little present.


Now the council tell me I can charge £70..which would have been more realistic.