It doesn’t seem fair cabbies have been told to hold fares

Taxis: Difficult not to feel sympathy for drivers who find it hard to make a living

You wait a year and then four come along at once.

That proved to be the situation this week when our elected representatives were asked to debate the idea of whether or not the taxi drivers of Angus deserved a pay rise.

It was back in 2015 that the last review of Angus taxi fares was initiated.

And with what seems to have been a rise in numbers on the ranks it would not have been unreasonable to expect a fair reaction from the trade when they were asked for their opinion.

Anyone who has experience of sitting in the back of a cab knows that’s a green light all the way.

That’s what led to four different proposals for rises – varying from no change to 43% added to the cost of the first mile – coming forward.

It’s been a while since I’ve been a regular user of what was largely the weekend lifeline to and from the largest village in Angus to the watering holes of nearby Forfar at the weekend.

And it was a simpler fares structure then.

Our regular cabbie’s tariff ready reckoner was one that even a man homeward bound and well-oiled could easily get his fuzzy head around.

A pound a head if five would – against the rules – squeeze in and one man kept his head down in the back.

It’s now a world of tighter regulation and exorbitant insurance and fuel costs for today’s drivers, with a clientele changing from the pub throwing out time crowd to bag-laden shoppers who lift the direct dial supermarket hotline.

So it’s hard not to have some sympathy with the trade, who shut off the meter and turned up at the licensing meeting to press their case, pointing out that one option would still require 100 one-mile fares just to make an extra £30 – before taking into account the costs of fuel, time and so on.

But at the same time I’m glad for my wallet that we’re a long way down the road from the five-mile journeys that would now be around £12 a go when it’s taxi for Brown time.

Picture: John Stevenson. Angus councillors were debating whether or not to give taxi drivers a rise.