I know that with this, I'll just be stating the obvious, but you know what they say you'll never really feel the frustration until you're on them magic shoes...
Taxi's become a scarce commodity during the wee hours of the night in the Metro especially now that Christmas is just a few days away. Well last night I had the chance to experience this personally.
I was with a couple of new found friends in Macapagal ave. Already done with the fun stuff and ready to call it a night when in fact it was already in the A.M. From where we are standing, I could see a lot of wanna be passengers who stood there restless waiting and maybe praying that they could already catch their rides home. The funny part is that there are a lot of taxis in the area and most of them, empty. I know that this is a common thing but man, I felt really helpless last night. Yeah I could list down the plates of those b*st*rds who refuse to convey passengers but I said to myself what good will it do me. You can see them one by one pulling over to the side of the road as they try to negotiate the fare for their service with their prospective preys.
If your destination is a li'l off, you get turned down. If you wanna use the meter, you get turned down. If you look suspicious they won't even bother stopping but hey I think that ones fair... The plate number's diffrent so is the face of the driver but their modus is just the same. They ask for your destination... When you thell them they try to think a little and they ask you, how much do you usually pay. If you say you don't know, they'll drop a very unreasonable figure in your face.
My Destination was Las Piñas City and the route is through Coastal Rd. The first cab made an offer 350. The 2nd one 500. The 3rd one 300. Funny huh? It's like an old game show called "If the price is right".
It took us quite a while before we got to sit inside a cab. I made an offer. He thought about if for a while and boom! The next thing we know we're on our way to LP. The driver tried to make small talk by trying to justify that what he and his fellow cab drivers are doing is wrong but he said they just hope that the commuting public will just try to understand and blah blah blah. He said a lot but these are just some of the few words that registered the rest are just noise.
So if this shall happen to you, report it to :
Frustrating as it is I think this is just a never ending cycle that we will experince until the public no longer needs or can no longer afford to ride cabs, which ever comes first.
If your destination is a li'l off, you get turned down. If you wanna use the meter, you get turned down. If you look suspicious they won't even bother stopping but hey I think that ones fair... The plate number's diffrent so is the face of the driver but their modus is just the same. They ask for your destination... When you thell them they try to think a little and they ask you, how much do you usually pay. If you say you don't know, they'll drop a very unreasonable figure in your face.
My Destination was Las Piñas City and the route is through Coastal Rd. The first cab made an offer 350. The 2nd one 500. The 3rd one 300. Funny huh? It's like an old game show called "If the price is right".
It took us quite a while before we got to sit inside a cab. I made an offer. He thought about if for a while and boom! The next thing we know we're on our way to LP. The driver tried to make small talk by trying to justify that what he and his fellow cab drivers are doing is wrong but he said they just hope that the commuting public will just try to understand and blah blah blah. He said a lot but these are just some of the few words that registered the rest are just noise.
So if this shall happen to you, report it to :
- 7890 - DOTC Action Center
Don't forget to also get the following information:
- Plate Number of the Cab
- Operator Name or Taxi Name
- Cab Model, Color, Etc.
- The Time and Date
Frustrating as it is I think this is just a never ending cycle that we will experince until the public no longer needs or can no longer afford to ride cabs, which ever comes first.
