So we roll up to a junction where I have to give way.
As I’m looking left and right waiting to pull out, the drunk passenger says:
“You’re ok this way, mate.”
Ok. Like I’m going to trust someone three times over the limit…
The Dave Price Blog
How very annoying…
Category Archives: Road Rage
Taxi driver gets parking ticket after 15 second stop in Gloucester.
What utter tossers. See story here.
Once Bitten…
I remembered this anecdote the other day, so thought I should share it.
About five years ago I picked up a couple of drunk gentlemen from one of the better known hostelries frequented by alcoholics in the West End of Morecambe.
They asked me to go to Sandylands Promenade (a mostly lovely place, with fantastic views of Morecambe’s famous sunsets) to drop them both off.
When we got there, the gentleman in the front seat settled up, while the chap in the back seat dragged himself of the car, slammed the door, staggered away and disappeared.
We quickly realised where he had gone. He had fallen over in the road behind the taxi, splitting his head open in the process. He was unconscious too. I called 999 and followed instructions from the operator, to make the man comfortable while we waited for the ambulance.
They told me that the ambulance was going to take forty minutes to get to us. I was a bit shocked at this, as there is an ambulance station within half a mile of where we were. I was told that as it was a peak-time for the ambulance service, an ambulance had been dispatched from Preston – a good 40 miles or so away.
Fantastic.
About 20 minutes later the chap under the blanket on the road behind my taxi started coming around, so I called 999 again to ask them what to do, as he was getting a bit weird, shouting, moaning, raving and bleeding from his head.
The operator despatched the police to our location, to assist.
When the police turned up, our friend on the floor went up a gear. He was struggling to get up, alternately growling at the police, and coming out with lines like “I WANNNNT TO BEE FREEEEEEE!!! FREEEEE MEEEEE!”
He wasn’t being restrained, he was just under a blanket, which he was struggling with.
Shortly afterwards, the ambulance turned up, and a paramedic walked over to assess the gentleman on the floor. He addressed the men:
“Good evening, Sir, what’s your name please?”
“Sir…? SIRRRR? Don’t you ‘SIR’ me!”
“Well, we need to call you something, what would you like me to do?” said the paramedic.
“What I would like YOU to do sir, is to FUCK OFF!” suddenly very coherently.
“Okay then” said the paramedic, spun on his heel, climbed back into his ambulance, and drove back to Preston.
I said to the Police officer next to me “Err, what just happened?”
“Zero Tolerance sir, they don’t have to tolerate bad language, so they don’t”
“Blimey.”
“So now we have to take him to the station, where the custody sergeant will not allow us to process him as he’s injured, and appears to be under the influence of alcohol, so we’ll have to call another ambulance.”
Which they did.
What an enormous waste of my time that was…
A few years pass.
I was in Lancaster, round the back of the railway station, when I saw someone’s feet sticking out into the road.
This old chap was snoring away, on his back. I was more concerned that a less careful driver might simply drive over his legs, which my conscience couldn’t stand.
So I parked my taxi near him, and turned on my hazard lights. Unfortunately I was unable to wake him up as he was very, very drunk.
I had another pedestrian that had stopped to assist me so I called 999. They sent the Police and an ambulance.
Just as they both showed up, the gentleman came round and started staggering about in the road. It turned out that he lived in the flats immediately nearby, so we all tried to work out where he lived.
As he bobbed and weaved into the front door of his building, a security light flickered on, illuminating a suddenly familiar face, minus the blood.
In true Fifty Shades style, “I gasped audibly.”
Then I think I might have swore.
One of the Police officers said “Oh not him again.”
“Does this a lot does he?” I asked.
“Quite a lot, yes”
Great.
To be caught out twice in three years I feel quite lucky in hindsight.
But still. People like that man tie up important resources because of their irresponsibility.
Will I stop to help someone in peril again – very probably.
Not because I fancy myself as some kind of hero. It’s because I care.
I care about people.
Even the idiots.
Awkward Spanish Lesson
Readers of my book How To Annoy A Taxi Driver (UK, US) will recall that one of my pet peeves are foreign people that deliberately converse in their native tongue for my benefit.
The paranoid part of me assumes that this is so that they can talk about me or taxi drivers in general, me being tarred with the same brush.
Indian students are the exception to this, which I think is very respectful indeed.
Tonight, two young ladies climbed into my taxi and girl A opened the conversation with this:
A
It won’t be more than £5.00 will it?
Me
I don’t know, where are you going? (am I psychic? no.)
A
The Old Bus Depot Flats
Me
It will probably be about that.
So off we go. On goes the meter…
A
God, it’s £3.60 already, that’s new…
B
(warningly) Dianne…
A
Well…
The girls then broke into fluent Spanish, with a very strong accent. I’m not sure whether they actually were Spanish, as when they were speaking English, they sounded local.
The conversation continued in Spanish for the duration of the journey.
Now, my knowledge of Spanish is minimal. I did a tiny bit at college, and I always make the effort to learn a few phrases and words for when I’m in Lanzarote – the locals like it, you make a good impression, you get better service, you’re remembered the next time you use their restaurant, bar or supermarket.
In short, you cease to be a generic pig-ignorant Brit abroad, and become a fellow human being that has at least made an effort.
By the way, I tried this at a street-side cafe in France once.
Image by Archibald Ballantine
The conversation went like this:
Me speaking French.
Me:
Bonjour! Un Bouteil de Evian, et un boiteil de Stella Artois, sil vous plait?
Waitress (Snottily, in English)
Only THOSE beers! (pointing grumpily at a menu)
Me: (pointing at the menu, and speaking in English)
A bottle of THAT then!
No tip for her, the snotty cow..
Anyway, back to the Spanish speaking passengers.
I didn’t understand too much of what was being said, and I won’t attempt to quote them, but my mind sort of translated it to this.
A
£3.60 pethethetheth £5 sminki pinki tenuros taxi driver.
B
Money nobo squintero Taxi Driver £3.60 novello proboscis – molto molto kin agrophos conman.
A
Bono estente bell-end pighardia scorchio £5 facilos taxi driver action-pumpo!
And so on, I got the jist of it, the old tar-brush was out, my ears were well and truly smoking etc.
And of course I just drove along as if I had no idea of the conversation.
Actually, when people do this, my ears prick up, to see if I can understand the conversation. If they’d just spoken in English in the first place, I’d probably just have ignored it, like I normally would any conversation in the taxi.
The meter flipped over to exactly £5 about 100 meters short of their destination.
B (To me)
Para Aqui… (Stop here)
So I stopped.
In my mirror, they exchanged a look between themselves which looked like “Fuck”
A (Handing over £5)
You understand Spanish?
Me (eyebrow raised)
More than you assumed…
Awkward. I admit, I let them assume I understood it all – and why not?
They hurriedly left the vehicle without a further word in any language.
Usually if I’m in sight of a passenger’s destination I’ll let the taxi roll rather than kicking them out.
But not this time.
Damn, that was fun!
😉
“Why is it..?”
I had a couple of chaps in my taxi a couple of weeks ago that I had to educate.
“Where to, please?” I asked. I’d picked them up on Queen St, Morecambe, at around 2am.
“Did they not tell you in the office?”
Oh here we go – you’ve forgotten since you ordered your taxi and/or you’re so pissed you can’t remember where you f*cking live – or something like that..
I said “I always like to check with the passenger, out of courtesy.”
“Can you take us to Red Bank Farm, Bolton le Sands.. how much will it be?”
“It will be approximately £15, maximum.”
“£15?! It won’t be that much – more like £10.” they said.
I said “Well it’s £10 minimum – to the nearest point in Bolton-le-Sands, £15 maximum, to the furthest point – It’s better to tell you the most it will be, so that you know you have enough, or need a bank, etc”
“How come you don’t know exactly how much it will be? Haven’t you been doing this job for very long?”
Are you being f*cking serious?
“Because I’m a taxi driver, not a computer – do you want me to take you or not?”
We hadn’t even set off yet. Off we went.
“We rang your company up yesterday afternoon and asked how much a taxi is to Morecambe. The lady said ‘about £7’ When the taxi driver got in he put the meter on – and when we got there it was £8. Why would that be?”
“Well where in Morecambe was it? The Centre?”
“No, further along than that.”
“Well there’s your answer – your ‘quote’ was an average price.”
“Well, when a customer rings they should know exactly how much it is – it can’t be that hard surely.”
“No, it’s very simple – if you give your exact start address, then the exact end address, did you do that?”
“We said Morecambe.”
“Well, it’s a pretty big place – I think £7 was a very good average price really.”
I’m starting to get a headache.
If this guy was any more anal he’d be trying to bum me through the back of my seat.
He says “I have a fuel card and I get Diesel for £1.15 a litre, how many miles is it?” and so on… etc… ending with:
“How do you sleep, charging that much?”
For f*ck’s sake!!!
“I tell you what it is, sir.. The Council set the fares – we don’t. If you don’t like the prices, don’t get taxis – walk – it’s free to do that. I only get half of what you’ve just paid for this journey, which is why I spend ten hours per shift, five nights a week doing this job.”
What a cock.
Adele, Cramp and Parmesan Death
This one rambles and jumps about a bit – but please read on. It will all make sense in the end..
By the way, some of it is about Vomit, you’ve been warned.
Today I awoke to the stabbing searing terror of my left calf convulsing in cramp.
“Hey folks! Do you know what time it is?! That’s right, i-i-i-i-it’s Cramp O’Clock!! Don’t hit that snooze button!!”
So I managed to get myself to a standing position without screaming, that usually sorts it. It did.
I had a revelation today. A moment of clarity. Well, several, but a couple of them were just inspired connections brought on by caffiene and chocolate I think, but more about that later.
Last night in my taxi I was on a rank, slowly making my way up to pole position outside one of Lancaster’s nightclubs.
Sorry to be specific here, but have you ever had a bit of bile try to force it’s way up, and you fight it back down by swallowing it? That happened. And it didn’t go well.
A girl tapped on the passenger window at that very moment to ask if I could carry five people in my taxi.
I was in the middle of winding the window down when my eyes started streaming.
My eyes were threatening to pop out.
“GLUG!!” I managed to say.
“Sorry?” she replied.
“I’M GONNA BE SICK!!” I rasped, turned away, and spat out of my window.
I turned back.
“Sorry! Sorry..” I croaked – but she had gone. Good – I couldn’t have fitted them all in my car, in any case.
It took me about ten minutes to recover completely. I drank a litre of water trying to sort myself out.
I wanted to write a funny Facebook status about it, as is my thing – “Death by Parmesan” or something like that. But it was busy, so I didn’t get round to it.
Lee Evans once likened the aroma of Parmesan cheese to vomit. As a result, Parmesan is definitely an acquired taste. I vividly remember as a child freaking out because the Spaghetti & Meatballs that my mum and dad had bought me at a restaurant smelled of sick, and I refused to eat it. I screamed the place down, if I remember..
But why is this? Why are vomit and parmesan so closely related, in a smell sense? Are there any biochemists reading that can help here?
Revelation Number One:
I remember being told by a college lecturer that cramp was something to do with the muscle being starved of oxygen. Lactic acid is produced so the muscle goes into a spasm and freezes up. When someone dies the heart stops and no oxygen flows. Lactic acid. Cramp. Rigor Mortis.
Hmmm. Lactic Acid. Lactose? Lactate. Milk. Cheese.
Parmesan Cheese.
Cheese is milk that has cramp.
Vomit smells of Parmesan which smells of Vomit. QED.
Have I gone insane, or does that make sense?
Back to my day, anyway.
I got up, went downstairs, and made a strong coffee. I drank it while eating the chocolate that I’d abandoned last night after my Parmesan Death Incident. Nice. That ties up nicely.
I’m told that starting the day with a chocolate breakfast is a bad thing. Being overweight, I’m a diabetes risk apparently. I hope not, because coffee and chocolate is the spinach to my internal creative Popeye. Or brain, to put it another way.
If you’ve ever met me after a high caffiene and chocolate intake, you can’t shut me up. I am on one, creatively speaking. That’s why I’m writing this.
What happened next? I drove to work – well, to be specific, I drove my car to where the taxi is parked that I drive. On the way I passed Adele on a Stick.
Okay, that really deserves an explanation.
A large part of Morecambe has recently been made into a 20MPH zone. I get this, there are schools, and kids. Kids on BMXs already own the roads in this area, riding out into the road without looking. In groups usually.
ET, but with twats.
I wrote about that in my book, How to Annoy a Taxi Driver (Only 98p on Amazon – very reasonably priced and a funny read – plug over.)
There are a couple of devices that have been erected on poles in the area. As a car approaches them, it displays their speed, and either a happy face or a sad face, depending on whether they are above or below the non-enforcable speed limit. The police don’t prosecute under 30MPH.
At 3am, when the roads are clearly empty, this machine scowls at everyone passing. She’s never happy to see me.
As I approached Adele she piped up with 19 and smiled at me. 🙂
I hate machines telling me what to do. At a previous job, a desktop computer once told me that I was “Not Authorised to Shut Down this Workstation” – “Really?!” I squeaked. Power switch off. Job done.
So I gently accelerated my car to 21, and of course she scowled at me. 😦
Adele on a stick.
Revelation Number Two:
Anyone care to recall the name of Adele’s two albums?
19 and 21. QED.
Conclusion
My main moment of clarity then, is that this stuff pops into my head under the influence of coffee and chocolate, which are apparently bad for my body, but good for my creativity.
Oh, and I love Parmesan cheese. Funny, that.
And Adele is pregnant.
Congratulations, love. When the baby inevitably pukes, I wonder if a penny will drop… 😉
Dave
The Dave Price Blog 