A FAREWELL TO THE ALEXANDRIA VIRGINIA TAXICAB INDUSTRY

After almost 41 years of making my living behind the wheel of a taxicab, the time has come to retire. I am 65 years old and it's damned time. 

I can't say the decision is entirely voluntary. Last year I was involved in an accident with an Alexandria city bus. No one was injured (Thanks be to God!) but the City filed a claim for four grand. That policy expires on the 21st of this month. It would have been renewed but for one teensy detail. 

Yesterday I was driving down King Street in Old Town when a woman decided she was just by-god gonna jump into traffic and anybody approaching had damn well better stop. Long story short, our side mirrors hit. Mine was bent back as designed. Hers was destroyed. And I found out that although this crap was NOT MY FAULT; even so if she files a claim my policy will be cancelled. 

So, it's time I got out of this fucked-up industry anyway. 

No, it's not the advent of UBER, Lyft, and the rest of these quasi-legal "gypsy cab" phone apps calling themselves "ride-share" services. These services are losing money and circling the bowl, with Uber as usual in the lead. These services are used by Millenials and cheapskates, and they can have them. To do what a cab driver does requires the "right stuff" and the stuff most ride-share drivers have is WRONG.

I began driving with Red Top Cab of Arlington VA back in November of 1977. Back then one was required to pass a rather rigourous program of training before being allowed to lease and drive a cab.  The drivers also got their fudge thoroughly packed by the company. So I switched to the (defunct) Diamond Cab of Arlington. I also racked up so many points for speeding that I had to quit for six months. 

After that I went to Alexandria Diamond (also now defunct). I passed the City hack exam and went to work, but my traffic record was still too messy and the City refused me a permanent permit. I just stuck my expired Arlington permit up on the visor and started working from just after the Hack Inspector went home until he came back to work. That lasted until an Alexandria cop became suspicious and checked my permit in the fall of 1979. 

The next 14 years were spent as a store detective, a short-order cook, a private investigator, and a regional courier. By the summer of 1994, all the old hack inspectors had retired and my traffic record had cleared up.  I obtained an Arlington permit and worked with Arlington Yellow until 1997, when again i switched to Alexandria Diamond. 

 I was immediately appalled at the state into which the industry had fallen. In the 1970s most of the drivers were American military veterans who knew how to communicate by radio. Now the industry was awash with foreigners who picked up the mike (MIKE! not "MIC" and stop that crap!) and said: "Hello? Hello? Hello?".   But there was plenty of business, and I quickly fell back into the old groove. 

Back in the day, cab companies were run mostly by people who had been drivers before. But sometime around the turn of the millennium one cab company began to be handled by "professional managers" who had never driven a hack for a living in their lives. 

Back in the day, a driver could earn fifty bucks, decide it was time for dinner or a swim, then come back to work and earn another hundred. It was freedom and it was good. 

Then around 2005, the leadership of Alexandria Yellow decided that it would be good to REQUIRE all drivers to accept plastic for all trips. The advantage of course was that nobody got a nickle until the company got their cut -- ALL OF IT.  Goodbye, freedom; and fuck that. I and Yellow parted ways and I joined with a 2nd rate company that gave me a piece of junk to drive. The damn thing broke down so often I wound up getting thrown out of my residence because I don't get paid for sitting in the shop. 

Right now as I write I am working to make all the CASH I can before the policy is cancelled and I have to turn in the hack. After that, I plan to go to Florida and find something to do. Maybe I'll become a beachcomber. One thing is certain: I'll never again give a fuck what happens to the industry I once loved. I am retiring effective Monday March 19 2018.

Ahhhhhh.....