Early this past summer gasoline prices in Toronto were at about $1.25 per litre. At about the same time, taxi companies increased their cab fares by 17% and the cost simply sitting in a taxi went up from $3.00 to $4.00 citing the increasing value of oil. That was in early June of 2008.
Today the price at the pump is anywhere from $0.69 to $0.75. In six odd months the cost of filling up a vehicle has fallen almost fifty percent, but when I needed to take cab ride last week, as soon I as got in to the car, the fare started at $4.00.
Why is it that the when the price of oil rises, it is reflected at the pumps and all related enterprises almost immediately, but when the opposite happens, everyone is found staring at the grounding whistling and unable to make eye contact?
This is just another example of Canadian consumers either not connecting the dots, or simply being okay with getting robbed blind.
5 comments:
An excellent point. Naturally, once a price increase comes around, no one wants to reverse it, especially if consumer behaviour has already changed.
I'm sure there are people still waiting for the "temporary" income tax to be revoked...
True Nhi, but aren't we supposed the generation of the educated consumer? Or are we the generation of the educated yet apathetic consumer, I fear we might be the latter.
I reluctantly agree. It also doesn't help that the media runs articles like this.
Thanks for the link Nhi.
It seems that the writer justifies the shortcomings of cab drivers because theirs is a harshly competitive industry and is almost apologetic.
The article neglects to mention the recklessness of the many drivers vying for fares executing sudden and dangerous lane changes to the illegal U-turns without regard to public safety.
Not being a driver in the city, I probably haven't even begun to scrape the tip of this ice berg, but I have on occasion, while being a passenger, seen some pretty outlandish driving behaviour, sometimes even within the eye-line of Metro cops who never do anything about it. The cabbies, it seems are all too aware of this and take full advantage of the two tier law enforcement practices of the cops - private vehicles would never be able to get away with half the stuff that taxies seem to have an immunity.
So this article has me confused a little. On the one hand you have a sad story of cabbies who pick and choose their fares based on the distance because they cannot make end meet, while in the real world, I've seen taxi drivers metaphorically run over their own mother to get a fare - somewhere here there is a disconnect.
Shay, I agree. I often wonder what type of deal cops and cabs have that absolves cabs from the Highway Safety Code. A sentiment that seemed to be shared a while back when I saw (on the extraordinarily rare occasion) a cab being pulled over to the exuberant cheers of pedestrians on the sidewalk! Looks like somebody forgot the payola.
I read Nhi's posted article and by the looks of the comments the readers disagree with feeling sorry for the cab drivers and are virtually begging for better regulations and some hint of customer service from the industry. As a vehicle owner I'm not sure who's doing their books. It takes me forever to get a cab from downtown Toronto to take a 20 minute $49 cab ride home (that would cost a $4.00-$4.50 in my gas guzzling Jeep). Also, a 12 minute ride to the airport runs me $38.
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