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One thing you didn't touch on in this video, how would you deal with a woman or girl, who jump into your cab,( not knowing the situation) and said "drive, please drive"
Black cab driver once returned my phone to the shop I was visiting by calling them first. Even refused a tip. What a gent and one of the reasons I continue to use them ❤
I make a point of using a cab at least once whenever I go to London, and that's purely because of this channel. The insight I've got into the taxi ecosystem and cabbies like Tom makes the act of taking a cab feel like a critical London experience.
Tom - I accidentally left my phone in a Taxi in Barcelona last week - spent an hour trying to track him down (on a Sunday) via the receipt to no avail and was needing to be at a hotel 250 miles away so had to call it quits... then I heard the sound of a car horn and he had driven round the location repeatedly and seen me. He not only returned it but declined 50% of the "reward" I offered him. Noble people cabbies!
I returned somebodys phone a few years ago, I said I didn't want any money and he thanked me before practically throwing £30 at me and running back inside his house. A few months later I took an old fella to the hospital at around 2am, very quiet and I dared to ask if everything was okay. When we was almost there I asked if he was alright and he started to explain his wife is about to pass in hospital. When I stopped the car I told him to get to his wife and don't worry about the fare (I think it was around £16). He broke down and started thanking me. Good karma exists and it's always worth being a nice person
Spoke to a customer a little while ago she told me she had £10,000 in cash returned to her by a black cabbie , she never knew where she had lost it there was her sons phone number on a bit of paper amongst the money so the cabbie traced her through that , fair play to the guy plenty of people out there would of kept that
I had a customer once go to me "what would you do if I got out at these red lights and ran?" I responded with "I am in a vehicle, love to see you try.", end of the fare he never ran, and he tipped me for bantering back. 😊
It’s always a pleasure to jump in a cab when we go to London, cab drivers nearly always really friendly, knowledge and happy to chat thank you London Cabbie
After a few years driving, you tend to learn many of the tricks that potential bilkers try. One of my favourites was someone pretending to be on their phone to someone at the other end agreeing to come out and pay, usually their "mother". You just know they have no intention of paying and kick them out at the first opportunity. Satisfying if they're going out of town somewhere..
When I started on the buses one of the driver trainers told me that you can see them in the queue, who’s gonna try and have you on or whatever. And it’s true.
Police Officer here, for people not paying you can detain them under a citizens arrest until police arrive. No police officer would prosecute a cabbie for keeping the offender in the taxi, just don’t get physical for your own sake!
I'm a former taxi driver in Canberra, Australia, and one story I have was that I was working one Saturday night in the CBD, a load of bars and nightclubs. It's approaching 2 am, I have a little more than an hour before I have to return the taxi for the next driver (I didn't own the taxi, I was just a hired driver for the owner.) While I was in the rank, waiting for a fare, three people approach the taxi, two supporting the third. One of the people supporting taps on my window and I roll it down. Asking me to take their friend who looked like they didn't even know what planet they were on, home. I said yes, expecting one of them to come with the friend to make sure they got home safe, but once the friend was loaded into the cab, the other two vanished. I guess they went back to the bar. So, I turn to the person they loaded into the taxi, and I ask for an address to take them. They look at me, and said "I'm not telling you where I live!" I was momentarily stunned by this response, but I decided on a compromise, and I asked them to tell me the suburb they lived in. And this seemed to mollify them. So, I start the meter and pull out, heading to a local set of shops in the suburb they said. The ride went pretty uneventful until I pull into the carpark of the small shopping plaza. They look around and say simply "This isn't my house" I explained to the passenger that I need their address to take them to their home. It took a little more back and forth before they finally agreed and told me the address. I drove them home, which was only about 3 streets away from the shopping plaza I took them to initially. I was a taxi driver for only 2 years, but that, thankfully, is the worst intoxicated passenger story I have.
Being self-employed is awesome. If I have an nhs worker who needs to learn to drive an adapted vehicle through illness or injury, their lesson is free. NHS folk look after each other.
I had a few phones left in my taxi when I was a taxi driver in Dublin. Not doing it now. After returning a few with no tip I decided they pay the taxi fare for me to return it to their location.
I've left a few phones in black cabs in London and have always had to pay the regular fare from wherever the taxi driver was to my location to have it returned. Lessons learned - I now always, always check the seat, floor and anything else before closing the door.
Always got a great buzz when re-uniting lost property, left on trains (When i worked for BR) with its owner. Usually via the (mum no. on phones), we've had people in tears as we return their property.
Iam PHV dog car I had a fare where a couple were taking thier dog to the vets for PTS. The couple were devastated poor lady sobbing in the back comforting her dog, we arrived I said "on me" I knew exactly how they were feeling after losing my staff a couple of years ago!
In the abstract of Laws, i cant remember the page but you can lock people in. Its along the lines of ´you can hold the passenger until an officer arrives to obtain correct details for the cabman to lodge a complaint with the courts´. I always have the law book with me just in case this situation arises.
I had no idea about the Great Ormond Street Hospital for free freebie, Tom and I think it's amazingly generous of the taxi driver to offer this. There's a famous children's hospital here in Liverpool, Alder Hey Children's Hospital and in all my years of going there, never once been offered the journey for free but there we go. It sucks that people do do a runner from taxis and this vid has been an eye opener to how you deal with it. Cheers and take it easy, fella 🙏❤
So odd about Lison Grove! I know a lot of musicians who will go there because of the string shop there! Also the only place I’ve had a cabbie say they don’t know about by name
16:07 Having been on that very trip back in 2016, I can say that it was truly a once in a lifetime experience. Karl (or Carl..) if you’re still out there as a cabby, you were a legend.
I think there is a lot of discrimination these days by black cabs in terms of who they pick up. Often I cannot even hail one unless Im in a suit or very smart…this means I often just use uber now. It’s a shame but still think there’s an old boys club in the the service, rampant discrimination and racism. I’ve tested this over the years with work colleagues 100 yards up who are white and cab drivers tell me they aren’t accepting but accept my colleague….i love seeing there face when my colleagues say wait for me but it’s my experience as an Asian born and bred in London using cans for work near Canary Wharf and Mayfair is absolutely appalling if I’m honest and it’s only getting worse
A taxi driver once told me that he had locked the doors and taken a non-payer to a police station. If you fancy a colab, how about asking the Blackbelt Barrister who's also on YT if he has a legal view on whether that's the right thing to do. A friend's dad used to only do taxi ranks and pre-booked work on Dial-a-Cab because he got fed up with people running off without paying. Qualified in 1969, had to give up a few years ago
I went from public to private hire some time ago, I largely stick to known customers or referrals in order to make my life easier but when I do take a booking for a random customer I fall back on experience, vocabulary tends to correlate with behavior so when I am talking to a stranger on the phone who wishes to arrange a journey I use that to decide if I will do it or not. I've had people aggressively yell abuse at me the second I answer the phone, demanding I pick them up immediately, not sure where they thought that would get them but it certainly wasn't my car. Its all about learning which customers to look after and which ones to avoid like the plague.
My uncle drove a cab at night. He eventually built up a clientele based on ferrying them home from bars. He had his regular customers, and had no need to take anyone else.
God i hate answering the phone, at weekends (im the only one out from 7am till 2pm but its a small town of about 60k people) the abuse i can get some days is rediculous, ive got to the point the junkies will not get picked up ever and if im in the rank and they get in then its money up front as alot of them have started doing runners lately. The great thing with it being such a small place is us taxi drivers all know each other so if somebody does a runner then all the drivers will know about it, this happened recently with 1 person who was already on the banned list but had moved...within an hour of her bumping everyone knew about it. word travels fast but its nice having a big list of regulars thats can keep you busy without having to pick up randoms. Also the old dears are the best customers because 99% of them aint bumping a fare.
If I find a phone in the back and it rings I will inform the passenger that I will have to put the meter on and charge them for the fare . Never had a problem that way
i've known drivers who "forget" to turn on the meter in order to charge more than the metered rate for the job, and because regular passengers know this, they ALWAYS prompt us. A handful of times I've forgotten to start the meter myself, but I then only charge from the point I start the meter.
7:07 In our case, if there is a serial one, we can block their phone numbers (so long as the number doesn't belong to a business), or directly ask for money upfront. However: If an account holder (especially through ACC or a staff from a business account) picks up a street hail, then we can cancel the current cash job, check the account and reassign the job to the driver.
5:55 While I have no idea how this works in the UK, in the Netherlands taxi drivers are absolutely allowed to lock non-payers in the cab and drive them to a nearby police station. I don't think many taxi drivers would go to those lengths though, as just like in the UK it's usually more lucrative for the driver to just get another job going as soon as possible.
I was a cabbie in Southampton for a number of years. On a very quiet night I picked up a young lad who wanted to go outside of the city. It meant I would do the run and not gat a fare back so would be on dead mileage back into the city. Anyway, the lad decided he didn't want to pay so I simply took him back to where I picked him up, after all, I was going there anyway. Then I gave his description out to base who contacted all the other companies who notified their drivers. I trust he enjoyed his walk home in the early hours.
My old man was a driver in the late 80s 90s he drove a fairway and a metrocab some of the things he use to bring home some treasures from the Back of the cab different times.
In my country taxis are unfortunately way to expensive to use it often, but I also have a cute Story. One morning while going to work, my dad tripped and broke his hand. At that moment a taxi driver was passing by and stopped. He saw that my dads hand was broken and took him to hospital without wanting a fare. My father insisted on giving him at least something. So they made a deal that the taxi driver would come to our home in a few days and my father gave him a bottle of wine to thank him.
Surely between all the cabbies in London you can come up with a west ham lost propety trip rota. If you drop off the lost propety with paperwork at somewhere central by 5pm. You only need one cabby to take it all to west ham. Everyone would have to do the job once every 40 years.
Had a cousin who was a taxi driver. Kept a crowbar by his seat, never once had a customor who didnt pay up eventually. He was a bit of a head case though. RIP Alan.
Good one mate. So many scenarios in that job. You just have to trust most people these days but as we know it can all go wrong. What I hated was someone knowingly was never intending to pay. I had 2, one after the other. A waste of 90mins of my times and fuel.
Ah, London cabbies have no backups as you have to radio system or a dispatch call centre. In my company: 0:57 If the driver doesn't call my supervisor to say they've found anything, they should go straight to the nearest police station and hand them in there (3:32). They can't really hand them into our office. Trouble for me is: They often don't report them until after the weekend or days later. So if I took a cab with a driver at night and I report them in the afternoon, he/she may well be off-duty in the afternoon, so I'd have to wait until they return to work to get the email (our email and meter are both on the tablet).
Several years since somebody ran away without paying. I have had several times people forgot something in my cab. The worst was when I was almost home at 3 AM and the last passengers rang and said they had forgotten av bottle of wine. I had to drive back aprox 25 miles. :-(
I agree with the get them to confirm. I was taking a cab from the airport with parents in the US and my mom just said an ambiguous large hotel chain name and I tried very hard to make it clear suspecting there were multiple in the city. The driver wasn’t having it and insisted he knew which one we wanted. Turned out it was of course the wrong one and we wanted one called like village not hotel or something that way. Driver was very nice about and got tipped for both journeys but could have saved us all so much trouble to just confirm the correct place and not just assume that because I was a kid i wasn’t worth interacting with.
@15:00 I needed to go to Great Ormond Street Hospital as a Child, the cheeky bugger charged my mum, fantastically informative video as per usual the bit about lost property was my favourite bit!
What about a system like they have at petrol pumps where you prepay using a card, then at the end of the journey the difference is refunded to the card. Wouldn't this prevent runners?
My uncle who had been a London cabbie for over 40 years used to tell the story of when he got into a cab himself late at night & noticed the meter wasn't running. When he got to his destination the driver claimed his meter was broken & suggested a fare that he knew was excessive. My uncle struck a match under the meter display saying "there's nothing on the meter & it is nothing that you are going to get. And i will check with the Carriage Office on Monday that it has been 'fixed'.". He was a big bloke so noone would argue with him.
It would be an any person arrest if you kept them in a taxi to take them to a police station. Section 24A of PACE allows a person other than a constable to arrest without warrant any other person they suspect has committed an indictable offence, is committing an indictable offence or where an indictable offence has been committed and you know they've done it or have reasonable grounds to suspect they have done it - as long as that arrest is to prevent them causing harm to themselves or others, suffering an injury, causing loss or damage to property or a constable cannot assume responsibility for the arrested person. Section 3 of the Criminal Law Act allows any person to use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances to effect the lawful arrest of that person, prevent crime or arrest a person unlawfully at large. All of the making off without payment/fraud/theft offences are indictable in law (as in it can be tried at crown court, this includes things which have a default mode of trial like Shoplifting, because it's still the offence of theft). So there's your layman's any person arrest lesson for future fare dodgers.
All a taxi service means to me is a licence to print money. Just like a vet. My surgery is literally 2 miles down the road, and the cheapest taxi i could get was £15 each way. For 15 quids worth of fuel you could go about 50+ miles! And people wonder why i don't leave my house very often. I cant afford the exorbitant taxi prices! Being disabled and having to carry around a. Oxygen tank with me every where i go is also a hindrance, but the huge taxi prices do not help.
4:07-7:29 can the driver unlock the door after the passenger has paid? 4:07-7:29 or is the door locked or unlocked at any random time if yk what i mean?
When India and Pakistan was “partitioned” can’t remember which country, the taxi drivers dropped loads of visiting rival fans at the ground of the first cricket test for free. Saying things like, pleased to have you here. Kind of took the tension out of the politics and the day back to cricket.
Never gave to lost property always returned to customer as he called his phone spoke to them and returned plus never asked for money but paid for returning it. Had few runners over yrs
i went to newcastle with family in car on new years eve to see some fireworks id been drinking vodka we start to argue so i just walked off i was walking round the city start getting people following me trying to talk to me not sure what their game was i didnt feel safe i just wanted to go home only had £50 in my account i asked a taxi driver if he would take me back to spennymoor but i didnt have much money couldnt cover the double time taxi fee.. he took me for £50 got me home safely the meter read £88.
It's always the people that don't look like they will pay, them are the ones that pay the bills, i work with gas my day usually involves boiler services, I've been in some complete shit holes and they tend to pay the same day, the "better off" people tend to take 2-3 weeks to pay a £100 bill, almost make it hard to get paid for doing work they asked me to do, i feel bad for anyone that has to wait or looses out on money due to fake notes or people that generally don't appreciate our time
I wouldn't make chase or lock them in not worth it your safety is more important. You have a camera that can send photo to the police they can arrest them themselves or send it to the hotel or residence so they can be identified no? . I have never and would never it's tipping sometimes can be iffy. I think checking notes with equipment is more accurate and trusting your own instincts. Be careful out there.
@@TomtheTaxiDriver fair enough lol. that's not actually too bad actually. i thought i would be a lot more. i doubt many would get a cab to go that far.
If I would become a Dutch cab driver, I would love a London cab with the steering wheel on the left side. Only I don't think they do it or is there a demand for.
Hello Tom I have been a cab driver for over 48 years. I once picked up two young ladies when I was a lot younger and after the usual chit chat from them, out of the blue one them asked how tall I was. I remember thinking before I answered, ‘what a strange question’ I replied ‘5 foot eight inches why. Well the reply knocked me for six. I was for once lost for words. I cannot here tell you what the reply was.
Up north with private hire taxis operated by certain people, whenever a customer has left their mobile phone behind, it mysteriously vanishes and can’t be found by the taxi driver 🤔
If you went outside London say someone from Kings Cross said take be to Colchester. Can you agree a fare before you set off as this is outside London and you dont want them to do a runner at the other end ? Or do you have to run it on the meter and hope they either oay or have enough money to cover the trip ?
Yep. I can refuse it as it’s outside of the met London area and distance. But also worth for the passenger and driver to come to some kind of pre arrangement
I'm under the impression that locking someone in your taxi and driving them to a police station would be classed as false imprisonment and although they can be charged for "bilking" they can have you charged as well.
And that is why I left being a Taxi Driver many moons ago. You could never make any money from it your expenses were more than what you took in as a Taxi Driver and all the passenger nuisances you have to face everyday.
did you get your steering wheel retrimmed in the cab or did you buy a new one that is leather trimmed, rather than plastic. been meaning to ask for a while now
I left my work phone in a bolt cab i was siting in the front of the cab and rang it as soon as the cab drove off and i see the driver pick it up and he didn’t answer, i tracked it on fine my iphone and then the driver knocked it off , i gave the driver a bad rating the next day and he contacted me to give the phone back and begged me to change the rating .
I'm American so I have to just ask it coming for taxi drivers if for example someone is having a medical emergency and they call a cab because well they don't want to risk waiting for a ambulance how would that work
Hi Tom I used to drive a taxi and I have had a couple of people run from me and i ran after them but I couldn't find the at all so I know how it feels to have some on run from me keep on taxing.
I'm pretty sure citizens' arrest can't be used for not paying a taxi fare. There are only certain offences that it can be used for. And we don't have that power in Scotland either, I believe. Better to not try and use it unless you know for sure you can. Otherwise, you could leave yourself open to prosecution yourself.
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One thing you didn't touch on in this video, how would you deal with a woman or girl, who jump into your cab,( not knowing the situation) and said "drive, please drive"
FUCKING SELL OUT!
Black cab driver once returned my phone to the shop I was visiting by calling them first. Even refused a tip. What a gent and one of the reasons I continue to use them ❤
Unlike mine that stole my Gucci scarf lol
I see people not paying often on the Fake Taxi episodes, it however always ends up well i feel.
😂😂😂
Agreed.
A man of culture 😄😎
Hahaaha
😂😂😂
I make a point of using a cab at least once whenever I go to London, and that's purely because of this channel. The insight I've got into the taxi ecosystem and cabbies like Tom makes the act of taking a cab feel like a critical London experience.
Tom - I accidentally left my phone in a Taxi in Barcelona last week - spent an hour trying to track him down (on a Sunday) via the receipt to no avail and was needing to be at a hotel 250 miles away so had to call it quits... then I heard the sound of a car horn and he had driven round the location repeatedly and seen me. He not only returned it but declined 50% of the "reward" I offered him. Noble people cabbies!
Ive had a bloke dive out of the window, ripping the arm out of his suit... couldnt chase him for laughing
I like to think it was a rental and he had to pay like £200 for a replacement lol
Destroying a £200 suit to hop a £20 fare is an interesting move.
@@DiamondCake2even if it was a cheap one, you can bet that £40 stung his stingy little heart lol
I returned somebodys phone a few years ago, I said I didn't want any money and he thanked me before practically throwing £30 at me and running back inside his house. A few months later I took an old fella to the hospital at around 2am, very quiet and I dared to ask if everything was okay. When we was almost there I asked if he was alright and he started to explain his wife is about to pass in hospital. When I stopped the car I told him to get to his wife and don't worry about the fare (I think it was around £16). He broke down and started thanking me. Good karma exists and it's always worth being a nice person
Spoke to a customer a little while ago she told me she had £10,000 in cash returned to her by a black cabbie , she never knew where she had lost it there was her sons phone number on a bit of paper amongst the money so the cabbie traced her through that , fair play to the guy plenty of people out there would of kept that
1 hour 12 min driving to travel 7.5 miles is crazy😂😂😂
Yep just use the tube.
That’s London for you
Almost could have walked
I had a customer once go to me "what would you do if I got out at these red lights and ran?" I responded with "I am in a vehicle, love to see you try.", end of the fare he never ran, and he tipped me for bantering back. 😊
It’s always a pleasure to jump in a cab when we go to London, cab drivers nearly always really friendly, knowledge and happy to chat thank you London Cabbie
After a few years driving, you tend to learn many of the tricks that potential bilkers try. One of my favourites was someone pretending to be on their phone to someone at the other end agreeing to come out and pay, usually their "mother". You just know they have no intention of paying and kick them out at the first opportunity. Satisfying if they're going out of town somewhere..
When I started on the buses one of the driver trainers told me that you can see them in the queue, who’s gonna try and have you on or whatever. And it’s true.
Police Officer here, for people not paying you can detain them under a citizens arrest until police arrive. No police officer would prosecute a cabbie for keeping the offender in the taxi, just don’t get physical for your own sake!
I'm a former taxi driver in Canberra, Australia, and one story I have was that I was working one Saturday night in the CBD, a load of bars and nightclubs. It's approaching 2 am, I have a little more than an hour before I have to return the taxi for the next driver (I didn't own the taxi, I was just a hired driver for the owner.)
While I was in the rank, waiting for a fare, three people approach the taxi, two supporting the third. One of the people supporting taps on my window and I roll it down. Asking me to take their friend who looked like they didn't even know what planet they were on, home. I said yes, expecting one of them to come with the friend to make sure they got home safe, but once the friend was loaded into the cab, the other two vanished. I guess they went back to the bar. So, I turn to the person they loaded into the taxi, and I ask for an address to take them. They look at me, and said "I'm not telling you where I live!"
I was momentarily stunned by this response, but I decided on a compromise, and I asked them to tell me the suburb they lived in. And this seemed to mollify them. So, I start the meter and pull out, heading to a local set of shops in the suburb they said. The ride went pretty uneventful until I pull into the carpark of the small shopping plaza. They look around and say simply "This isn't my house" I explained to the passenger that I need their address to take them to their home. It took a little more back and forth before they finally agreed and told me the address. I drove them home, which was only about 3 streets away from the shopping plaza I took them to initially.
I was a taxi driver for only 2 years, but that, thankfully, is the worst intoxicated passenger story I have.
You clearly have a lot of time on your hands now.
Ugh, can't stand drunks
I can’t believe the person’s “friends” not only went in the cab with him, but didn’t even endure the driver knew where tf to take him. Wow.
Being self-employed is awesome. If I have an nhs worker who needs to learn to drive an adapted vehicle through illness or injury, their lesson is free.
NHS folk look after each other.
Sorry…why was Lissan Grove a no-go zone?
Known area for fake cash. (Likely an organised crime ring location/area)
Loads of cab drivers have been robbed with violence near an estate there over the years,
I had a few phones left in my taxi when I was a taxi driver in Dublin. Not doing it now. After returning a few with no tip I decided they pay the taxi fare for me to return it to their location.
I've left a few phones in black cabs in London and have always had to pay the regular fare from wherever the taxi driver was to my location to have it returned. Lessons learned - I now always, always check the seat, floor and anything else before closing the door.
Always got a great buzz when re-uniting lost property, left on trains (When i worked for BR) with its owner. Usually via the (mum no. on phones), we've had people in tears as we return their property.
Iam PHV dog car I had a fare where a couple were taking thier dog to the vets for PTS. The couple were devastated poor lady sobbing in the back comforting her dog, we arrived I said "on me" I knew exactly how they were feeling after losing my staff a couple of years ago!
In the abstract of Laws, i cant remember the page but you can lock people in. Its along the lines of ´you can hold the passenger until an officer arrives to obtain correct details for the cabman to lodge a complaint with the courts´. I always have the law book with me just in case this situation arises.
I am quite enjoying watching your video.... I think you have a generous heart and soul... keep it up ...
I had no idea about the Great Ormond Street Hospital for free freebie, Tom and I think it's amazingly generous of the taxi driver to offer this. There's a famous children's hospital here in Liverpool, Alder Hey Children's Hospital and in all my years of going there, never once been offered the journey for free but there we go. It sucks that people do do a runner from taxis and this vid has been an eye opener to how you deal with it. Cheers and take it easy, fella 🙏❤
I've been waiting for this video ever since I found your channel years ago.
So odd about Lison Grove! I know a lot of musicians who will go there because of the string shop there! Also the only place I’ve had a cabbie say they don’t know about by name
16:07 Having been on that very trip back in 2016, I can say that it was truly a once in a lifetime experience. Karl (or Carl..) if you’re still out there as a cabby, you were a legend.
Hiya Tom! Love these vids, hopefully will see tku in person one fay around London!
Hey bud, Re the £60 fair, doesn’t the card machine approve before they leave the taxi, like in shops etc. Great video, love them ❤
Only if you wait while it says "please wait". I usually do, but a lot of people just leave as soon as the card has scanned.
Can't believe you mentioned my area, Never knew you've been near sunbury
Editing on point on this one Tom! Love it
I am 38, I've been going to great Ormand street all my child hood, never once got offered the cab fare for free lol
I think there is a lot of discrimination these days by black cabs in terms of who they pick up. Often I cannot even hail one unless Im in a suit or very smart…this means I often just use uber now. It’s a shame but still think there’s an old boys club in the the service, rampant discrimination and racism.
I’ve tested this over the years with work colleagues 100 yards up who are white and cab drivers tell me they aren’t accepting but accept my colleague….i love seeing there face when my colleagues say wait for me but it’s my experience as an Asian born and bred in London using cans for work near Canary Wharf and Mayfair is absolutely appalling if I’m honest and it’s only getting worse
Love the videos Tom. Havent been in England for years. But really looking forward to going to London soon because of your videos!
A taxi driver once told me that he had locked the doors and taken a non-payer to a police station. If you fancy a colab, how about asking the Blackbelt Barrister who's also on YT if he has a legal view on whether that's the right thing to do.
A friend's dad used to only do taxi ranks and pre-booked work on Dial-a-Cab because he got fed up with people running off without paying. Qualified in 1969, had to give up a few years ago
I thought about a collab with BBB too, that would be a good video to watch ☺
Some UA-cam fans wet themselves with pleasure when they think of a "colab" between two of their favorites.
I went from public to private hire some time ago, I largely stick to known customers or referrals in order to make my life easier but when I do take a booking for a random customer I fall back on experience, vocabulary tends to correlate with behavior so when I am talking to a stranger on the phone who wishes to arrange a journey I use that to decide if I will do it or not. I've had people aggressively yell abuse at me the second I answer the phone, demanding I pick them up immediately, not sure where they thought that would get them but it certainly wasn't my car. Its all about learning which customers to look after and which ones to avoid like the plague.
My uncle drove a cab at night. He eventually built up a clientele based on ferrying them home from bars. He had his regular customers, and had no need to take anyone else.
God i hate answering the phone, at weekends (im the only one out from 7am till 2pm but its a small town of about 60k people) the abuse i can get some days is rediculous, ive got to the point the junkies will not get picked up ever and if im in the rank and they get in then its money up front as alot of them have started doing runners lately. The great thing with it being such a small place is us taxi drivers all know each other so if somebody does a runner then all the drivers will know about it, this happened recently with 1 person who was already on the banned list but had moved...within an hour of her bumping everyone knew about it.
word travels fast but its nice having a big list of regulars thats can keep you busy without having to pick up randoms. Also the old dears are the best customers because 99% of them aint bumping a fare.
If I find a phone in the back and it rings I will inform the passenger that I will have to put the meter on and charge them for the fare . Never had a problem that way
proper way to do it.
As a passenger, I would feel bad if you didn't.
Lovely video today tom! Funny to have the stereotypical runner have a bit of a sectoon
i've known drivers who "forget" to turn on the meter in order to charge more than the metered rate for the job, and because regular passengers know this, they ALWAYS prompt us.
A handful of times I've forgotten to start the meter myself, but I then only charge from the point I start the meter.
7:07 In our case, if there is a serial one, we can block their phone numbers (so long as the number doesn't belong to a business), or directly ask for money upfront.
However: If an account holder (especially through ACC or a staff from a business account) picks up a street hail, then we can cancel the current cash job, check the account and reassign the job to the driver.
5:55 While I have no idea how this works in the UK, in the Netherlands taxi drivers are absolutely allowed to lock non-payers in the cab and drive them to a nearby police station. I don't think many taxi drivers would go to those lengths though, as just like in the UK it's usually more lucrative for the driver to just get another job going as soon as possible.
Really enjoy your videos. Good content from a thoroughly nice guy. Thank you sir.
Thank you for your time to tune in!
Great insight to your hard work thanks .
I hope you guys get good exercise that's important
I was a cabbie in Southampton for a number of years. On a very quiet night I picked up a young lad who wanted to go outside of the city. It meant I would do the run and not gat a fare back so would be on dead mileage back into the city. Anyway, the lad decided he didn't want to pay so I simply took him back to where I picked him up, after all, I was going there anyway. Then I gave his description out to base who contacted all the other companies who notified their drivers. I trust he enjoyed his walk home in the early hours.
My old man was a driver in the late 80s 90s he drove a fairway and a metrocab some of the things he use to bring home some treasures from the Back of the cab different times.
Great inspriing vlogs, really like your enthousiasm@ greets from holland
In my country taxis are unfortunately way to expensive to use it often, but I also have a cute Story.
One morning while going to work, my dad tripped and broke his hand. At that moment a taxi driver was passing by and stopped. He saw that my dads hand was broken and took him to hospital without wanting a fare. My father insisted on giving him at least something. So they made a deal that the taxi driver would come to our home in a few days and my father gave him a bottle of wine to thank him.
Have you thought of doing a colaboration with Geography Challenges? He's the guy who beat your Geoguessr London record :)
Surely between all the cabbies in London you can come up with a west ham lost propety trip rota. If you drop off the lost propety with paperwork at somewhere central by 5pm. You only need one cabby to take it all to west ham. Everyone would have to do the job once every 40 years.
This is genius! Like jury duty for cabbies 😂
I knew a taxi driver whose passenger left a fish supper in the back. He duly posted it through their letter box.
Sounds like an Uber or Uber Eats 😅
Had a cousin who was a taxi driver. Kept a crowbar by his seat, never once had a customor who didnt pay up eventually.
He was a bit of a head case though. RIP Alan.
I salute you and All cabbies and taxi drivers.
I like you mate. Subscribed. Gonna catch black cabs more often now!
Good one mate. So many scenarios in that job. You just have to trust most people these days but as we know it can all go wrong. What I hated was someone knowingly was never intending to pay. I had 2, one after the other. A waste of 90mins of my times and fuel.
Ah, London cabbies have no backups as you have to radio system or a dispatch call centre. In my company:
0:57 If the driver doesn't call my supervisor to say they've found anything, they should go straight to the nearest police station and hand them in there (3:32). They can't really hand them into our office.
Trouble for me is: They often don't report them until after the weekend or days later.
So if I took a cab with a driver at night and I report them in the afternoon, he/she may well be off-duty in the afternoon, so I'd have to wait until they return to work to get the email (our email and meter are both on the tablet).
You’re able to arrest under PACE 24a for indictable or either way offences!
Several years since somebody ran away without paying. I have had several times people forgot something in my cab. The worst was when I was almost home at 3 AM and the last passengers rang and said they had forgotten av bottle of wine. I had to drive back aprox 25 miles. :-(
But did you charge them the full fare for the return journey. I hope you did.
I got some money but would rather prefere to deliver the next day. It was Christmas and I had worked for many hours.
I agree with the get them to confirm. I was taking a cab from the airport with parents in the US and my mom just said an ambiguous large hotel chain name and I tried very hard to make it clear suspecting there were multiple in the city.
The driver wasn’t having it and insisted he knew which one we wanted.
Turned out it was of course the wrong one and we wanted one called like village not hotel or something that way.
Driver was very nice about and got tipped for both journeys but could have saved us all so much trouble to just confirm the correct place and not just assume that because I was a kid i wasn’t worth interacting with.
In high school I heard of groups of kids going together in a cab, then they all run off in different directions to meet up later.
No brats in a cab ..... 😂😂
@15:00 I needed to go to Great Ormond Street Hospital as a Child, the cheeky bugger charged my mum, fantastically informative video as per usual the bit about lost property was my favourite bit!
Yrs ago in Walsall taxis asked for the fare upfront before they even started the engine!!
What about a system like they have at petrol pumps where you prepay using a card, then at the end of the journey the difference is refunded to the card. Wouldn't this prevent runners?
Tom, you are a true gent 🤜
My uncle who had been a London cabbie for over 40 years used to tell the story of when he got into a cab himself late at night & noticed the meter wasn't running. When he got to his destination the driver claimed his meter was broken & suggested a fare that he knew was excessive. My uncle struck a match under the meter display saying "there's nothing on the meter & it is nothing that you are going to get. And i will check with the Carriage Office on Monday that it has been 'fixed'.". He was a big bloke so noone would argue with him.
If only companies had your attitude, Tom!
It would be an any person arrest if you kept them in a taxi to take them to a police station. Section 24A of PACE allows a person other than a constable to arrest without warrant any other person they suspect has committed an indictable offence, is committing an indictable offence or where an indictable offence has been committed and you know they've done it or have reasonable grounds to suspect they have done it - as long as that arrest is to prevent them causing harm to themselves or others, suffering an injury, causing loss or damage to property or a constable cannot assume responsibility for the arrested person.
Section 3 of the Criminal Law Act allows any person to use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances to effect the lawful arrest of that person, prevent crime or arrest a person unlawfully at large.
All of the making off without payment/fraud/theft offences are indictable in law (as in it can be tried at crown court, this includes things which have a default mode of trial like Shoplifting, because it's still the offence of theft).
So there's your layman's any person arrest lesson for future fare dodgers.
All a taxi service means to me is a licence to print money. Just like a vet. My surgery is literally 2 miles down the road, and the cheapest taxi i could get was £15 each way. For 15 quids worth of fuel you could go about 50+ miles! And people wonder why i don't leave my house very often. I cant afford the exorbitant taxi prices! Being disabled and having to carry around a. Oxygen tank with me every where i go is also a hindrance, but the huge taxi prices do not help.
4:07-7:29 can the driver unlock the door after the passenger has paid?
4:07-7:29 or is the door locked or unlocked at any random time if yk what i mean?
When India and Pakistan was “partitioned” can’t remember which country, the taxi drivers dropped loads of visiting rival fans at the ground of the first cricket test for free. Saying things like, pleased to have you here.
Kind of took the tension out of the politics and the day back to cricket.
Never gave to lost property always returned to customer as he called his phone spoke to them and returned plus never asked for money but paid for returning it. Had few runners over yrs
Is there no way to obtain the records of payments, included rejected ones? Surely TFL's bank can help with this
Saw your video with Here Be Barr. Good stuff.
Also if you have a new cab does the first passenger get the fair free of charge?
i went to newcastle with family in car on new years eve to see some fireworks id been drinking vodka we start to argue so i just walked off i was walking round the city start getting people following me trying to talk to me not sure what their game was i didnt feel safe i just wanted to go home only had £50 in my account i asked a taxi driver if he would take me back to spennymoor but i didnt have much money couldnt cover the double time taxi fee.. he took me for £50 got me home safely the meter read £88.
Love the videos, Tom. That 100k is in sight!! 👍👍
@2:50 West Ham, the funny thing about that place is, tfl shares building with Stagecoach and customers often go to stagecoach instead 🤣.
It is a citizens arrest when you lock them in a car and bringing them to a police station with a no pay person
It's always the people that don't look like they will pay, them are the ones that pay the bills, i work with gas my day usually involves boiler services, I've been in some complete shit holes and they tend to pay the same day, the "better off" people tend to take 2-3 weeks to pay a £100 bill, almost make it hard to get paid for doing work they asked me to do, i feel bad for anyone that has to wait or looses out on money due to fake notes or people that generally don't appreciate our time
You should ask @Blackbeltbarrister where you would stand on the citizens arrest thing Tom, I'm sure he would give you some great advice.
I wouldn't make chase or lock them in not worth it your safety is more important. You have a camera that can send photo to the police they can arrest them themselves or send it to the hotel or residence so they can be identified no? . I have never and would never it's tipping sometimes can be iffy. I think checking notes with equipment is more accurate and trusting your own instincts. Be careful out there.
was the meter being at 4.20, you dropping a hint? lol
no cab in london costs 4.20 :P
Starts at £3.80, goes up in 20p increments
@@TomtheTaxiDriver fair enough lol. that's not actually too bad actually. i thought i would be a lot more. i doubt many would get a cab to go that far.
If I would become a Dutch cab driver, I would love a London cab with the steering wheel on the left side.
Only I don't think they do it or is there a demand for.
Hello Tom I have been a cab driver for over 48 years. I once picked up two young ladies when I was a lot younger and after the usual chit chat from them, out of the blue one them asked how tall I was. I remember thinking before I answered, ‘what a strange question’ I replied ‘5 foot eight inches why. Well the reply knocked me for six. I was for once lost for words. I cannot here tell you what the reply was.
Up north with private hire taxis operated by certain people, whenever a customer has left their mobile phone behind, it mysteriously vanishes and can’t be found by the taxi driver 🤔
What a racist comment 😂
@@kylebaxter7125 facts ain't racist.
@@FoxDrenAnd that isn't a fact.
@@listey As a Yorkshireman, I can confirm we _ARE_ a race
Btw love the videos tom!
If you went outside London say someone from Kings Cross said take be to Colchester. Can you agree a fare before you set off as this is outside London and you dont want them to do a runner at the other end ? Or do you have to run it on the meter and hope they either oay or have enough money to cover the trip ?
Yep. I can refuse it as it’s outside of the met London area and distance. But also worth for the passenger and driver to come to some kind of pre arrangement
@@TomtheTaxiDriver Thanks for your reply lovin your videos
I'm under the impression that locking someone in your taxi and driving them to a police station would be classed as false imprisonment and although they can be charged for "bilking" they can have you charged as well.
And that is why I left being a Taxi Driver many moons ago. You could never make any money from it your expenses were more than what you took in as a Taxi Driver and all the passenger nuisances you have to face everyday.
did you get your steering wheel retrimmed in the cab or did you buy a new one that is leather trimmed, rather than plastic. been meaning to ask for a while now
Great video tom as always
Great video Sir
I left my work phone in a bolt cab i was siting in the front of the cab and rang it as soon as the cab drove off and i see the driver pick it up and he didn’t answer, i tracked it on fine my iphone and then the driver knocked it off , i gave the driver a bad rating the next day and he contacted me to give the phone back and begged me to change the rating .
I'm American so I have to just ask it coming for taxi drivers if for example someone is having a medical emergency and they call a cab because well they don't want to risk waiting for a ambulance how would that work
Probably a dumb question Tom but how do you answer the owner or call say.....their parents if the phone is locked ?
Hi Tom I used to drive a taxi and I have had a couple of people run from me and i ran after them but I couldn't find the at all so I know how it feels to have some on run from me keep on taxing.
Love these videos, keep up the good work!
Gotta leave a comment for the algorithm gods :)
Why is Lisson Grove a no-go zone?
Brilliant. Thank you.
Ink never properly dries on paper notes.
I'm pretty sure citizens' arrest can't be used for not paying a taxi fare. There are only certain offences that it can be used for. And we don't have that power in Scotland either, I believe. Better to not try and use it unless you know for sure you can. Otherwise, you could leave yourself open to prosecution yourself.
How didn’t you see the payment decline when they made the £60 payment with you?
Any idea on arriving to your destination and the meter said £10.00. It suddenly adds £2.50 when the driver press another button when he stops?