Passenger complaints about taxi drivers rise 14.5%

There was a 14.5 per cent increase in the number of complaints lodged about taxi drivers last year with one passenger saying the person who drove them “should not be allowed drive a shopping trolley let alone be a taxi driver”.

The complaint, among 1,312 received by the National Transport Authority, alleged that the taxi in question was “absolutely filthy” and that the driver was “aggressive to other road users”.

The complaint led to the authority issuing the driver a fixed-penalty notice, a device used in 1,874 cases last year with drivers paying a total of €108,660 in fines (up 29 per cent on the previous year).

The individual penalties range from €40 to €250 and the vast majority of these are issued when taxis do not meet the standards set out by the authority’s compliance officers when vehicles are inspected. A total of 148 fixed-penalty notices were issued as a result of customer complaints.

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The authority said 529 of the 1,312 complaints received related to driver behaviour and 470 were in connection with alleged overcharging, a 24 per cent increase on the 2017 total. The number of complaints about the condition of vehicles fell by 30 per cent.

“I took a taxi from the rank and the taxi has what can only be described as a horrific smell of sick,” one passenger said in their complaint. “While I recognise previous customers may have soiled the taxi, the driver is entitled to a soiling charge and should be off the road.”

‘Broken leg’

In that case, the authority inspected the vehicle but did not find any evidence of an offence.

In another case, a taxi driver picked up a fare at St Stephen’s Green in Dublin to bring a couple to their hotel.

“We knew it was not very far but I have a broken leg,” the complainant said. “We hadn’t finished saying where we wanted to go when the driver exclaimed very rudely that we should walk as it would only take two minutes. We explained that I have a broken leg and was too tired to walk and it would take us a lot longer than two minutes. He eventually (extremely begrudgingly) agreed to take us.”

The complaint stated that the driver “continued to be rude and grumpy for the remainder of our short journey and made the atmosphere uncomfortable”. In response, the authority gave a caution and the driver apologised when interviewed.

Sat Nav snags

Another customer complained to the authority about a driver who “seemed unable to follow the Sat Nav, frequently missing turns and bringing us the long way around”.

“She claimed she was taking short cuts, but all of them resulted in a longer journey,” the passenger said. “Eventually we had to bring up Google maps on our phones and talk through the route. This journey usually takes 40 minutes, and with this driver it took almost an hour.”

The case was not proceeded with as there was no response from the complainant when contacted.

A woman notified the authority that she took a taxi with her husband and asked to see the driver’s identification card, which was not on display.

“We asked to see it and he then proceeded to put a woolly hat on his head as a kind of disguise . . . We cut our journey short and got out,” she said.

In response, the authority issued the driver with a penalty notice for not displaying his ID.