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STRESSED-OUT TAXI DRIVERS at a Dublin rank suffered 19 strokes or heart attacks in one week, a lobby group claimed.
The Committee for National Taxi Drivers (CNTD) also said the pressure on some of its members to make a living in a crowded industry was driving some to suicide, according to the Irish Sun.
CNTD spokesman Tony Rowe said cabbies suffered a total of 19 strokes or heart attacks in the Sackville taxi rank on O’Connell Street within one week last month.
He also claimed one female driver took her own life – the 39th to do so in the past two and a half year.
Last week Minister of State for Public Transport Alan Kelly announced a review of the taxi industry after public outrage over a Prime Times Investigates programme on RTE which exposed double-jobbing in the industry, fighting at ranks and unsafe cars.
Not to sound cold, but taxi driving isn’t the most active of careers.. I wonder how those figures would look if they took into account the average fitness of the drivers and how many were at the rank that week too.
Bobby Molloy I applauded you for deregulation – those cold nights in college green when you didn’t see a taxi for hours and the queues from trinity to the central bank…..
We don’t need a system where a taxi plates costs the price of a house, we don’t need some guy driving a clapped out 1997 nissan sunny with 1 shock absorber working. We need a clean, comfortable taxi system at a fair price. Taxi drivers your not doing yourselves any favours by coming to work in a tracksuit and f’ing and blinding about everybody else.
For business visitors, the taxi driver is sometimes the only local person outside the meeting host that a foreign guest to our country gets to talk to. You have heard the story where one person tells 50 other people about a bad experience who individually go onto tell 50 other people etc etc
Fix this problem and you enhance one of the many tourism “shop windows” of our country.
You are an idiot my friend. As you stated “taxi plates costing the price of a house”, did you ever think of the people that bought a plate in the months before deregulation or the older workers that were dependent on it for their pension. These people have not been compensated for the second mortgage they have which is worth nothing. I know men that work twelve hours a day, seven days a week just to pay the bills and have some quality of life. Sure there is a lot of them that should clean up their act but most of the drivers from before deregulation keep their car in good condition and present themselves well.
No one is entitled to have their job protected the way the taxi men did for so long. They are not entitled to a single cent of compensation – they caused the taxi plate prices to go so high, they effectively had a monopoly, a cartel, running for decades. They arranged between themselves who would work where and when and they made a lot of money before deregulation.
I don’t think so. If you had a deposit and security you could have got a plate. I bet yourself and all the other red thumbers would sing a different tune if they or a close family member bought a plate for €70,000 and one year later it was worth €5,000. Also people make out that taxi drivers make a fortune, That’s why all the people that bought up the plates are renting them for less than a hundred euro a week.
Firstly, Diego, there are tens of thousands of people in this country who bought something at a highly inflated price and those people are now in negative equity and no one is bailing them out – c’est la vie – and secondly, my reference to taxi men making lots of money was past tense. I don’t disagree that it may be harder now but again, that’s life. Taxis are free to offer discounts and whatnot and my observation on that is that very few have. I don’t use taxis that much but even the most recent time I did I had to watch the meter and ask what the extra charges were for. I’d say 3 of the last 5 times I got a taxi I was overcharged and 2 of the last 5 times I had to endure (subtle) racist rantings. They are their own worst enemies.
Its not half what their customers suffer with shitty taxis, drivers who can’t speak english, and taking the long way home !
Sad to hear such statistics . Stress certainly a part but maybe sedentary lifestyle is major factor.
Hmmm…isn’t that the same rank that’s avoided by non-white/non-Irish taxi drivers?
Avoid it? They aren’t allowed near it!
Who isn’t stressed out these days?
Don’t know about you guys but I’d be looking for another rank!
“The Committee for National Taxi Drivers (CNTD) “??
“The Irish Sun” ??
Is there any actual evidence to back up these claims?
I care because??? I couldn’t give a damn! Been around for a long time and underneath it there is no such thing as a poor taxi driver! The only moaners around are the mafia in control of the lions share of plates!!
i gave yer auld one a thumbs-up
@Ando…..who hasn’t!!!!!!!
LOL :)
Taxi drivers…. 90% good cop 10% bad cop. It’s the 10% that show up all the time. One driver told me that Larry Murphy was a taxi drive…WTF!!! it’s not the drivers, it’s the ppl who put some of the on the road.
To be honest I would feel safer on a bus!
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