Taxi Driver Online

Where to start with this?

Actually, maybe not worth bothering with it, but I can think of other words that cheer me up more, such as :

"Make that..."
"Call it..."
"Take...for yourself"

If fact the students here are particularly good at the kind of gladhanding stuff the council is encouraging here. For example, a gushing "have a lovely evening", or similar. But zero tip

Often feel like saying stuff like "er, it's 2.30am, so it's not the evening, and it's mainly driving pi$heads home over three million speed bumps, so I'm not finding it particularly 'lovely'".

Anyways:


The two words that mean so much to bus and taxi drivers in Hull

https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hu ... us-7459000

Council campaign calls for kindness


Image: Hull Daily Mail

It's the cheery phrase every taxi or bus driver in Hull loves to hear.

"Thanks drive!" is uttered hundreds of times of a week in the city Sadly, not every passenger offers those two simple words of gratitude at the end of a journey.

According to one recent study, 22.1 per cent of all private hire and hackney carriage drivers in Hull said they had experienced verbal abuse while carrying a fare. Among those who were non-white British, the figure rose to 58.5 per cent.

In addition, 40 per cent of the drivers said they had first-hand experience of passengers deliberately damaging their cars. On buses, 86 per cent of drivers reported damage being caused to their vehicles.

In addition, racist abuse had been experienced by 23.5 per cent of bus drivers who were quizzed while one in five said they had been the subject of homophobic abuse.

Now Hull City Council is launching a new campaign urging people using taxis and public transport to show more kindness to the people behind the wheel as well as to their fellow passengers. The message will be displayed in posters, in-app messaging, on social media and in street advertising.

Councillor Rob Pritchard, portfolio holder for communities, crime prevention and culture, said: "Bus and taxi drivers provide an absolutely essential service and they deserve to do their jobs safely, with respect and without experiencing abuse or being worried about experiencing it. The results of the survey reveal the extent of abuse people are facing, and it’s completely unacceptable.

"The aim of the campaign is to help people understand the impact their behaviour has and make a change. Part of this is understanding the cumulative effect on drivers – that incidents can happened multiple times in a week.

"Simply urging people to be kind can help them rethink how they’re treating others. We also want drivers to feel supported and know that bad behaviour won’t be tolerated. Drivers are not obligated to carry passengers who choose to ignore the campaign and continue to be abusive."

Eh? Does that mean at least 20 per cent of bus drivers are homosexual, or what?

Actually, maybe better not to use the word 'homosexual', because I think that's regarded as homophobic as well, so maybe better with LGB.

But that's transphobic, so better add the T, so I really meant LGBT. Or LGBT+, blah, blah. On the other hand, adding the T etc is regarded as misogynistic by many now

Which in turn maybe explains the survey results - everything's potentially whatever -phobic these days, and were all whatever-phobes

Anyway, even ignoring all that, this is the usual touchy-feely council PR kind of stuff, when maybe what drivers would prefer is to see police dealing with the drunks and ferals etc rather than leaving it to this kind of thing.

So in fact arguably this kind of stuff is the root cause of it all in the first place - policing is being replaced by 'be kind' comms gimmicks

Would pi** me off no end.

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IDFIMH

I suppose the council is doing what they think is best, but I very much doubt a punter is going to reflect on what the council says when they off their heads through drink or drugs.

If grown adults need a council reminder to be nice to taxi drivers, then we really are in a bad state of affairs.

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IDFIMH

No doubt some will have noticed that I got the racism and homophobia figures mixed up earlier

Corrected now, and in fact they're quite similar (23.5 per cent and 20.0 per cent), so doesn't really affect the substantive point

Have you never had passengers do that ? it has always been a popular game amongst drunks trying to annoy a driver by falsely accusing and abusing them of homosexuality at least round here anyway maybe it's different up in the kingdom of fife

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

It never bothered me when thick northerners say everyone locally in gay, couldn't give a flying f***.

It says all it needs about them.

Same at the football, away fans, typically northern away fans, sing chants about the number of locals that are gay.

Once again home fans couldn't give a (see above).

The best chant back is 'you're too ugly to be gay'.

Which in most cases is 100% correct.

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IDFIMH