How Long Can You Hold It?
Taxi drivers at the Charlottesville Albemarle Airport have to hold it all day, or at least until they get a fare, drop them off and can perform a quick pitstop at a Golden Arches.
CHO, the great airport folks, are considering new regulations to keep taxi drivers in their vehicles, even though the cabs often line up for hours by the dozen for a few measly fares at different times of the day. The regs would require drivers not to leave their vehicles unattended, even though the cabbies often sit for up to six hours waiting for planes to come in.
Any driver who needs to answer the natural phone would have to pull his cab around the airport and back into the short-term lot, use the facility, get back to the car, pay to leave and drive around the airport again to get back at the end of the line, effectively destroying any chance to get a $30 fare.
The regs, similar to those at Dulles and major airports that, unlike CHO, have a constant flux of passenger flights, are under consideration. If enough drivers write in to complain, the regs will likely change. Getting taxi drivers together to actually cooperate and protest something can be pretty difficult, though, as they are truly the last of the country’s rugged individualists. They don’t do groups or paper work very well, which is why they prefer a car for an office.
The idea behind the regs is to keep unattended vehicles to a minimum, lest one of the vehicles have a bomb. It’s unlikely, of course, that someone who has been licensed and paid a fee to the airport to operate a cab at the site, including a criminal background check, is going to blow up their means of income. There are more likely explosive scenarios that can occur much closer to the airport, but let’s not give anyone any ideas, eh?
Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah.
The regs also prevent taxi drivers from wearing t-shirts or any shirt with an emblem on it, excluding a designer emblem such as Izod, Ralph Lauren, Levi or Wal-Mart. No, Giants, Patriots, Minnesota Twins or Cavalier clothing is allowed.
Those regs are also under advisement.
Posted by Bryan McKenzie at 01:15 PM. Filed under: Lunatic Fringe •
