Taxi Driver Online

What ideas? To work your b*ll*cks off for barely the minimum wage?

My idea was exactly the reverse, to highlight the low or very low takings that now affect this trade, with in some areas the added mill-stone of investment in WAVs to come very shortly.

Obviously, Brum is not the place to be working as a cabbie, judging by the comments above.

As for the powers that be . . . . derestriction in our two trades is a government policy that most licensing authorities follow!!!

Just ask yourself this . . . . what kind of unemployment figures would the government be showing if there were sensible restriction policies throughout the country?

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Kind regards,

Brummie Cabbie.

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OK . . . let's do this proposed poll a different way.

Instead of anonymously disclosing a band within which our individual takings fall, let's have an anonymous poll in 10 or 15% bands of an estimate of how much our earning have fallen in percentage terms since each one of us joined the trade?
That way nobody gets ideas.

I know for a fact that when I joined the trade in 1979, on my first shift, which only lasted from 18.05hrs until 21.50hrs on a Tuesday, I as a rookie driver took £81.20. And diesel was just over 50p per litre then.

Now, with fuel at almost 1.25p per litre, I'm lucky if I earn a third of my earnings in 1979 for the same hours worked on a Tuesday evening, or any evening, night or day for that matter, for the same hours.

That's the point I was trying to get over in my initial post, but I hadn't given it anywhere near enough thought.

No way did I ever think that the post would aspire to become a bragging of how much each of us might earn in their respective areas . . . exactly the opposite!!

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Kind regards,

Brummie Cabbie.

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I joined about 20 years ago, and worked nights.

I suspect I'm earning a little bit more now than then, but working days.

If I was doing the same night hours now as I was doing then I suspect I would be earning about 50% more.

But I wouldn't have a family.

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IDFIMH

I'm exactly the opposite!!

I recon that I'm earning about 60% less now than I was earning in 1979 & that's in monetary terms, NOT real terms, i.e. not accounting for inflation / the respective value of the £ now to then.

Aproximate annual mileage then was 55,000 to 65,000 per annum, now it's 18,000 to 22,000 & those mileages were surveyed with driver & LO MOT mileages in our 2007/2008 survey.

_________________
Kind regards,

Brummie Cabbie.

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Disagree with other members' views;
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I asked a few of the lads a couple of weeks ago to do a breakdown of costs to do this job. Now providing they own the car out right on average they have to earn £30 7 days a week just to break even and keep the car on the road doing the job. This does not include living expenses. That may not seem a lot to some people, but, if you think that some days drivers are waiting an hour to an hour and a half for a job, that equates to a lot of hours to be worked. A lot of drivers are complaining that they are not even meeting minimum wage for the hours that they have to work.

The easy solution to this problem would be to give up and leave the job, which some have because they have got work elsewhere. Their places on our system have been taken by other people even though there isn't enough work for the drivers that are left let alone new drivers.

The HC's here are asking the council to re-regulate but there is nothing that the PH driver can do. There is no course of action, other than giving up, open to them.

There are drivers here currently working 16 hours per day 7 days per week, this surely cannot be a good situation for anybody. True to form the driver here, like everywhere else, are their own worst enemy. They will not stand up and take action

I think it's safe to say that on average drivers now are paying more to earn less

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

I would say that we are 50% down on what we were on about 3 years ago