Taxi!

Isle of Thanet, Kent. From home to train station £4:50. Pretty much same to town.
If you're calling to book a cab, ask while you're on the phone how much the fare will be? If the driver asks for more refuse to pay it, you've had the price given to you by the office and it's the office that set the fares!!

I live fairly close to Heathrow and have always been happy to pick up friends and family from flights. The last time I left the country myself I ordered a taxi there as my DiL and young DGS were with me but on my return when I was alone I got the train for less than half the price and only a short walk from the station.
When the extension to the London ULEZ comes in I'll have to be less generous with lifts and suggest people get on the train. I can then pick them up from a station outside the ULEZ zone!

That fare seems reasonable..I paid £9.90 for a 4 mile trip for an appointment and the return trip cost £12!

Thank you for your explanation, WillowBreeze59. I drive my car for long distances (eg to DH's home in France, etc) and use buses for local trips as I have a pass. Luckily, I have a First Class Rail pass, thanks to DH's career, so happily pay for taxis to the station. We are lucky in Torbay to have more than one reliable company; their prices are fair and their drivers are always chatty and polite. From my home to the station (less than three miles) costs no more than £10, which I think is reasonable.

As a driver who gives lifts to non driving friends I don,t think people always appreciate the costs of running a car insurance tax wear and tear etc on top of petrol . Sometimes I don,t even get the offer of help with the parking fee . So if anyone does give a lift please be generous if it has saved you a taxi fare.

icanhandthemback you should look into that a bit more because some counties will subsidise the nursing home to get people to things like lunch clubs and hobby clubs.

And of course rent, rates, heating and lighting and employees’ NI in the case of a taxi office. Thanks WB, that may help those who complain about taxi fares to understand what’s involved (as I have said so many times in response to complaints about lawyers’ fees).

I try to avoid taxis - but use uber or cabs quite frequently. I'm happy to pay - as it's so much cheaper than owning a car - even here in London - and far more convenient.

As someone who managed a taxi office for over 25 years I'll explain about the taxi fairs. The council set the minimum start off payment on the meter, so if you get in a taxi and the meter says £3.10p then that is what it is for the first mile. If the fair goes over a mile it goes up every 10th of a mile thereafter (I think) by however much the council set it to. Obviously this differs in different areas, and will be more expensive nearer London. Often drivers hire the vehicle from a taxi company, so whatever a fair might come to, the driver only takes 40% of that fair, the rest goes to the owner of the taxi company. You might well be thinking gosh, the owners must be raking it in but you have to then remember they are paying for all the fuel in the cars, paying all the upkeep of them to keep them legally on the road, paying to get them cleaned, along with public liability insurance, and insurance of a hackney liscence/private hire liscence which is not cheap, and has to be done yearly, it's similar to an MOT but more strict in what they check over. They have to have an operators liscence too, just to name a few. Even if the driver is an owner driver, he/she will still have to do all this. Fuel has gone up astronomically and is around £100/£120 to fill a tank up, and so you are on averaging around £300 a week on fuel alone! 10 vehicles fueling up at £300 a week is £3,000 before anything else for the boss to pay out for!! So at the end of the day, they are not left with much in the pot! Sometimes even a loss, it has been known! Remember the only time the drivers are earning are when the wheels are turning round! If they are just sitting around as no work coming in, then they aren't earning a penny. I'm not saying by any means that taxi fairs are cheap, as they are extortionate, I'm just explaining where your money goes!! It doesn't just go into the driver's "pocket" which some might think it does. Of course there is then all the control staff to pay, (the people who take the bookings on the phone, and issue the jobs out to the drivers) and also admin staff! There is no way I'd be a taxi driver, it's long hours for a pittance, and some drivers have to work 7 days a week to make what they need to pay their bills.

Last week I paid £25.00 for a journey of just over 8 miles in Cornwall. So your fate seems cheap compared with that.

I took 2 taxi's yesterday from just outside Lincoln to Leicester and back, neither paid by me, I dred to think what they would have cost.

Approx 7 yrs ago a journey from the local hospital back home was £25 (14 miles) shudder to think what it would cost nowadays.

I am just grateful there are taxis for the times I need one. Everything has gone up so understandably taxi fares have risen as well.

I live in a village with buses once an hour, my daughter lives a 20 minute drive away. With the £2 bus fares it would cost me £4 and take an hour and a half after which I'm fit for nothing. Taxi costs £35!

On a more jolly note re taxis, recently quite latish at night after a thing at the Albert Hall, I couldn't quite face walking a dog-tired 11 year old up to South Ken station and flagged down a black cab. The fare from there (for 4 of us) to Twickenham, about 14 miles and a good 35 mins was £40 and the driver was a cheery bloke. I think I'd have taken that cab even if he's said £60. So not all bad news!

You wouldn’t willingly have had Cabbie’s sad circumstances though, would you? Perhaps an apology would be in order.

Crikey ….where are you living! I had to go to an hospital app last week a distance of 3 miles away. ….at the cost of £23 round trip !
I would have willingly paid £14

After my husband died, I needed a taxi to get home at 2 a.m. for a journey of about ten miles. Then the driver would need to get back into the city. I thought the £28 he charged was actually quite reasonable in the middle of the night.

During Covid you probably wouldn’t have been allowed to visit. I hope your husband is improving.

interesting messages
My husband.....recently sent home from hospital after a 3 month's stay had an jnjury caused in part by negligence on the ward/ He was so distressed that he was considering using the services of Dignitas in Switzerland

The journey to the hospital was about 18 miles each way. He was distressed and I wanted to support him daily. My own visual capacity is variable so I cannot always drive; hospital transport was not available; local charities would only support me if it were for my own appointment; I could not ask for daily help from friends. This left resorting to a taxi
The fare was £45 each way. I could have chosen to pay waiting time for the driver during my visit An hour's wait allowed the total return fare to be over £115 a day. Needless to say, the idea of paying ..... about £800 a week was horrendous

My offspring are in full time work, live in other countries and have their own families and problems Nevertheless I could not have visited daily without the aid of these 'children' who flew in to the UK using up their leave entitlement to do so
On the other days I had to explain to my husband ( aged over 90) that I would visit if at all possible

Had this occurred during the Covid era, I think outside help would have been available to me

When I visit my son I will jump in a taxi at train station to his house I was getting charged anything from 22-39 my son said mum use Uber I now pay about 15-18 for the same 35 min journey. I prefer them you know where taxi is who driver is and Reg number so I would say it depends on who you use for your taxi too

People forget that the driver also has to get to them, or if they are from say a station taxi rank they have to get back there. They can’t do that for nothing. The cost has to be paid. And how many who complain know the maintenance, insurance and licensing costs taxi drivers have to pay?

I need to transport my Mother in her wheelchair 2 miles up the road from where she lives with a return journey a couple of hours later. Unfortunately, the nearest taxi rank is about 6 miles away so the clock starts when the taxi leaves the rank. It will cost my mother £30 each way. And so endeth her trips out from the Nursing Home and the stimulation her mind got from attending her lunch club. 😢

Longdistancegrnny

We went out on Good Friday with some friends to our nearest town - 6 miles or so, and decided that as we all wanted a couple of glasses of wine we would take a taxi (one of friends also has breathing difficulties and a taxi would get us much closer to the restaurant than the nearest car parking) - we could NOT believe how much it was - £44 (each way!!!!) Apparently our local Council set a 50% premium for taxis on a Bank Holiday. Thank goodness we were not out till after midnight - goodness knows what they add on for that.

I think the taxi driver adds a price for each person in the taxi. So if 4 of you £8 before you move.

About a month ago I had to go to our local A&E Dept (4.3miles door to door in Birmingham), I would normally drive but couldn't on this occasion.

Granted, it was a little after midnight but that really shouldn't make any difference but I was shocked when the driver said "£26.10, but we'll call it £27.00!". Needless to say, my reply was "No we won't, even £26.10 is robbery".

It goes without saying that I got on the bus coming home at 10am, for the princely sum of £4.