Karl Weiszhaar Denver, Colorado USA

Hi, I have a group, now on yahoo called taxicabdrivers@yahoogroups.com Your contact in Sydney, Australia sent me the link to your page. What a great site! I've seen other taxi websites and yours is by far the best. I've been in the "trade" for 22 years. I see taxi in everything on your page. It's interesting that we all share the same problems, regardless of where we are in the world. Everyone wants us there, but we get no support. Here in Denver, Colorado USA the company that I drive for is now owned by a bus company. Coach USA, which in turn is now owned by a British bus company. Believe it or not I can't recall the name of the company. I remember the president's name is Brian. I've never been on the side of deregulation. I've noticed that the people who always want deregulation are the same people that drive for a year or so and are out. Here in Denver we have drivers that got what they wanted in other cities, and now are here trying to screw things up. Of course when they have screwed it up here, they'll go somewhere else and screw it up there too. Why did they leave the cities that they "liberated"? No business. Minneapolis used to be a great city to drive a cab in. I drove there for 7 years. Especially in Winter. I'd drop a passenger off and the neighbor would come over and say I was at the wrong house. They were my next pickup. I share your concearn for what they call here, "traffic calming" They have made Denver almost impossible to drive in. I believe the biggest cause of "road rage" is traffic calming. We used to have the greatest green waves here in Denver. You could cross the entire city without stopping. But with the renewal of the city, now all these yuppies are complaining about the traffic on their streets. I say to them, "Hey, you chose to live in the city, get used to it". But political correctness prevails. We've actually had two lane one way streets devolved to one lane. As a protest, I always drive 10 mph under the speed limit, just to pile up traffic behind me. We've had many of our green waves removed. They want to make it as difficult as possible to drive in the city, in hopes of making people use mass transit. All it's done is congest traffic, and of course they blame the congested traffic on the growth of the metropolitan area. I read the traffic counts every six months. the arteries in Denver carry pretty much the same volume of traffic as they did 50 years ago. 100,000 people moving to Parker, Colorado, does not affect traffic on Federal Blvd. Anyway, now you know one of my hot points:o) Henry Barnes was the greatest traffic engineer ever! I found your reference to the words "my love" or "darling" funny. Here in Colorado, we have many Mexicans. In Spanish, "juero" means "white boy". In Spanish, especially American Spanish, it's not insulting to call someone by race, whether they are or not the race you refer to. People get into my cab all the time and say, "oye, mi juero". It wouldn't be insulting to me for someone to say, "oye, mi negro". Ya gotta love this business. I have a few taxi jokes. Unfortunatly, I can only remember 2 of them. I'll give you this one. A taxidriver in New York City has a lady and her daughter in the cab. They're going past Times Square and the little girl asks her mom why are all those ladies standing on the street. Well, the lady tells her daughter that those are ladies waiting for their husbands to get off the train. The cabdriver says to the woman, "Hey, why don't you tell her the truth? They're hookers." Well, the little girl asks her mom what hookers are, and she has to explain to the little girl about hookers. The little girl thinks about this for awhile and later asks, "Mommy, do hookers have children?" And the mother replies, "Of course they do, where do you think taxidrivers come from?" Anyway, I could go on all night, as any good taxista should. I'll share my other taxi joke, hopefully, I can remember the rest of them soon. I set this joke in Denver because that's how I heard it and how I can frame it. A guy is taking a taxi from the Westin downtown to the airport. As they get close to Peoria street the guy asks the taxista how much it will cost. The taxista tells him $35. The guy says, "I've only $27. Do you take credit cards?" The taxista tells him he doesn't. So, the taxista pulls over to the side of the road and throws him out. About 2 weeks later, the same man was at the Westin downtown Denver needing a taxi to the airport. He looks down the queue, and sees that same taxista in line. He goes to the first cab in line and says, "How much to the airport?" The driver tell him $35. The man says, "$100 get me a blow job?" And the driver tells him to get out of here. He goes to the second driver and says, "How much to the airport?" The second driver tells him it's $35. "Will $100 get me a blowjob?" The second driver tells him to take off. He goes up to the third driver who doesn't recognize him and says, "How much to the airport?" The driver says, "$35." The guy says, "Let's go!" As they go past the first 2 taxis on the stand, the guy in the back gives them the thumbs up sign. I better get to bed so I can spend my 12 hours on the street tomorrow. I spent more than 2 hours on your site. That's pretty damn good. If you get a chance, rent the movie "Hellcab". It's the most realistic movie I've ever seen of the business. I don't like the driver because he's a bit of a ditz. but the situations are so real. I don't know what it's like to drive in the UK, but the scenes of drugs and violence were a bit real. In fact, very real. I had flashes of that movie for 2 months after seeing it. You have yourself a very profitable day tomorrow. I'll let you go. I'm known for my rambling on the groups I'm in:o) Ten buen día. Karl Weiszhaar Denver, Colorado USA ps. I found this site very interesting:o)