AIBU regarding the complaint about the taxi driver?

[ytgahja]

I live a 5 minute walk from my daughters school. At the weekend I tripped while walking the dog and have fractured my ankle. Unfortunately my husband passed away 3 years ago so it is just me and my 5 year old.

Now I can't really walk understandably. My foot hurts but my entire body hurts. I have some really cool bruises

Anyway I tried hopping my daughter to school but it took over 40 minutes. Even setting off early, nobody else can bring her as they go to breakfast club and that has to be pre booked for the term so I can't let her go

I rang our local taxi firm and explained as I have to you and emphasised that it was a very short journey twice a day to take and collect her from school. I spoke to the manager and we agreed on 10 pounds a day. Honestly it's a price I'd be willing to pay because hopping isn't for me

Taxi driver this morning shouted at me for wasting his time and that to come here for a 2 minute drive is ridiculous, that I'm lazy and I need to walk. As we got out I asked him to put my daughters side of the car onto the path and he refused so I had to lift her over me to get her onto the pavement which jarred my ankle and then I struggled to get out and he told us to get out and stop wasting his time
So would I be wrong to make a complaint?

You agreed a price with the manager, what difference does it make to the driver whether it is very short, he knew how much he was getting for it so in fact the shorter the better from his point of view?

Absolutely complain. The manager accepted the job

He sounds like a dick. He wouldn't have said anything if you were a man. I'd ring the firm and cancel the arrangement, explaining exactly why, and go with another company (if you can).

What a fucking nasty arsehole. You need to have a word with his manager and the manager needs to pull him for this.

Absolutely complain. arsehole.

Complain! I've had that before. A taxi driver booked for 9.30 arrived 15 mins early, I went out at 9.25 and he had a go at me for letting him wait! I reminded him what time I booked for and he just huffed and said as yours did, it was a stupid short journey and a waste of his time and the least I could do was come out when he arrived so as not to waste more of his time. Having an injury is a perfectly acceptable reason to need a taxi. My granny used to get a 5 min taxi ride home with her shopping. One of the things keeping the trade going is people who have trouble walking!

I’d complain and then get some crutches and use them instead.

Can you hire a sit on electric mobility scooter instead?

Have you seen the knee scooters…they are fantastic. If you get one, try and find the off road ones as they have a wider base and are more stable

I'd complain and buy some crutches, I got some from Argos delivered when I had a knee injury.

The OP may already have some (what kind of A&E dept doesn’t give crutches for a fractured ankle?!), but they are very awkward to use, nigh on impossible if you also have to hold the hand of a lively 5 year old.

OP - have you spoken to the school? They may be willing to waive the rule about having to give notice to use the breakfast club in your circumstances.

Yes I have crutches but it turns out I'm not very good at using them and my 5 year old is very very lively and likes to run and skip and sing her way to school which is usually fine but I dont want her skipping into the road when I'm behind hopping.
Im going to ring the taxi firm and raise a complaint. And yes good idea I'll speak to school and see what we can do.
Also how long till I feel less like I'm drunk when I'm hopping? Because I've never been so unbalanced without the aid of alcohol

Did he definately know how much the payment was going to be? If he did he is a dick and deserves to loose his license. My uncle was a taxi driver and he could not charge for time spent getting to the job. This is fair enough, but if your driver thought you'd called him there and were going to only pay him for the length of journey you did, he would have probably spent more coming to you than he could charge you! While it's not exactly an excuse to be rude, it's understandable that pissed him off.

Taxi driver this morning shouted at me for wasting his time and that to come here for a 2 minute drive is ridiculous, that I'm lazy and I need to walk.

Did he really?

This is more batshit than the thread where the bus driver shouted at the woman and wouldn't let her on.

I hate that people use this excuse all the time “it wouldn’t happen if you were a man”. Not everything is misogynistic fml. Some people are just cunts

Yes they would. These drivers hate short journeys, regardless of who’s booked them. 🙄

Hate it all you like, doesn't stop it being true that many cunts are a lot less cunty towards men than they are towards women. It's not an excuse at all.

Its not an excuse. Its an observation. Unless they're pretty confident in their ability to handle themselves, these types don't tend to dish it out to other men. Not necessarily misogyny, just plain old cowardice.

I'm surprised you say that as the taxi drivers I've been using prefer short journeys. I apologised to one about my journey being short and he said they prefer more short journeys to one or two longer ones.
Considering the cost of my shorter journeys against the longer ones I understand that.

I imagine it's different at school run time, which can be more lucrative with regular gigs taking kids some distance to schools. But if you've got a short drive like this taking up that school run slot, it's not like you can do more school runs to make up for it. I can see why the driver wouldn't want to do it for that price, but it's what his manager agreed to so he'd have to take it up with him not OP.

I thought most regular school runs were regular drivers but even if not, most drivers now are able to see from their app the trip and price/reward on offer. Certainly Uber drivers can and our local taxi company too. This allows them to accept trips or not take them.
He could have just not taken the trip.

Meh, he might have still been pissed off and rude to a man but i agree with the other poster probably not in the exact same way - not necessarily even because he might respect men more (although that could also be the case) but solely out of cowardice that shouting at a man might get himself thumped.

Op this has brought back memories of being told the same thing when I was a student getting a lift to the club! Which, yes was a short distance but I doubt the driver has ever walked half a mile in stilettos! Who do they think they are - better any fare than sitting about twiddling their thumbs.

£10 is a decent payment for a very short, easy, and most importantly repeated/regular (at least short term) run, I doubt there's a huge call for drivers at that time of the morning, and even if there is, if he'd just taken you quickly instead of twatting about arguing he could have been free again in 5 minutes to do a longer one.

Absolutely complain, and unless the head office is suitably apologetic I'd be splashing it all over Google reviews and, their social media pages as well. We've finally managed to get my gran to give up her car and encoyrage her to take taxis whenever she wants to go anywhere as although famiky see her very regularly none of us live in the same town (she's late 80s so not far, we're talking to a mile or two to church or the shops) - if a taxi driver spoke to her like that it would really upset her and stop her going out. I imagine the same might apply to some one with mh difficulties or whatever.

sounds more like an old school cab firm set up than an uber/app based one if OP agreed it with manager who’d schedule it for a driver for several days till OP is better. There’s lots of proper cab firms around still, esp in quieter areas.

Sadly, no old style taxi firms round here but even then, surely the manager and driver would communicate?

He shouldn't have spoken to you like that. Absolutely not.

but what many people don't seem to understand is the way most taxi companies work. Drivers are contracted to take jobs they get assigned, irrespective of whether they're financially viable or not. Being tied into a school run twice a day for £10 is going to prevent the driver taking jobs that are actually profitable, not done at a loss.