The Short And Bitter: Business-wise, The Coronavirus Outbreak Is A Hard Hitter

My taxi buddy Rick, who once owned Red Top Taxi, said it best by saying "In 40 years, I have never seen it like this!"  And in my almost 33 off & on years, neither have I.  Even our standby accounts, Hopelink and MV First Transit, are way down.  It is great that Hopelink has generously added an additional $10.00 per trip but it also seems that Hopelink related no-shows are more frequent, adding pain to misery.  Yellow (PSD) cut the single-owner dispatch fee in half, making it $90.00 from the usual $180.00. I am told that Orange Taxi cut their monthly dispatch rate by 300.00.

A good/bad example of what it's like is today's waiting for an account time-call in Zone 155, home to Children's Hospital, historically the source of many good fares, including many to Eastern Washington.  There I am patiently waiting for the time-call, number one to go when the cab in front of me called a no-show, meaning his time-call blew up in this face, and wouldn't you damn well know it, getting mine.  I haven't had a fare since, which is why I am quickly writing all this instead of trying to squeeze money out of nothing whatsoever.

I have been told that us taxis are considered an essential service and will not be shut down if and when the governor called for a mandatory limiting of movement in and around the state.  France is now requiring written permission to move about.  The first day, 4000 violators in Paris paid a 35 euro fine.  The second day the fine went up to 135 euros per violation.  As I said last week, all we can hope is that this passes quickly but that might be very wishful thinking.

As everyone appears to be now saying, stay safe and stay healthy.  And if you have a God that you believe in, you might want to invoke the "higher spirits" as folks did in 14th Century Europe when confronting the "Black Death" or bubonic plague,  giving us the tradition of saying "God Bless You" when someone squeezes.  Back then, viruses and bacteria were unknown, bad things like disease thought to be caused by "evil spirits, demons and such" having taken hold of body and soul.  The Roman Catholic Church, amongst others, still officially believes in "devil possession" and their ability to be cast out.  I personally think that many of our politicians are "possessed " and should be cast out of office.  Now that would be a true blessing.  Why the mere thought nearly make me feel religious, or something like that!