Though Oakland does not have a Transportation Commission, the city does plan major transportation improvements. However, there’s no one resource for learning about proposals, no regularly scheduled meetings on transportation policy, and no consistent decision-making process. In the next seven days, three important public meetings offer the opportunity to aid the city’s transportation needs.

Bus Rapid Transit

Bus Rapid Transit, the world’s most successful transit service, has proven controversial in Berkeley, with bus opponents launching an initiative to “leave our streets alone” (I am part of the campaign against this measure). Heated rhetoric aside, this is a major transportation improvement that deserves more attention from Oaklanders and policy-makers. North Oaklanders, and indeed anyone who plans to ever take transit to North Oakland destinations not adequately served by BART (like Temescal or Koreatown), are invited to learn more about the proposal tomorrow. (Thanks for the reminder, Becks!)

Jane Brunner’s Community Advisory Meeting on BRT

Saturday Oct 11, 10a

Peralta Elementary School, 460 63rd St

Taxi Service

Think Taxi service in Oakland is adequate? Never waited too long for a taxi? Never spent hours calling the only two cab dispatchers in this city of over 400,000 people? Never resorted for a female friend’s throaty phone voice to get you a taxi back from a West Oakland warehouse party? Never missed an Oakland Opera performance because there just weren’t any cabs at 7pm in the DTO? Then this meeting is not for you.

Biannual meeting on adequacy of permitted taxi service

Monday, Oct 13, 7p

Hearing Room One, City Hall

(If you cannot attend the meeting, comments can be sent to Assistant City Administrator Barb Killey, bkilley at oaklandnet dot com)

Oakland – Alameda Transit Connections

With the expected development of the rest of the former Alameda Naval Air Base, the issue of providing improved public transit access from Oakland to Alameda is even more pressing. Proposals range anywhere from amphibious buses to Bus Rapid Transit to a “futuristic” monorail. Oakland’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, of which I am a member, invites the public to comment on ways to bridge the Estuary.

Estuary Crossing Study

Thursday, Oct 16, 5:30p

Hearing Room 4, City Hall

Well friends, for a while it was all just too easy. A month in Costa Rica - piece of cake. Getting to Vietnam -  a synch. Job - done. But finding housing has been a bit of a hangup (I've been at it for three whole days now, goodness be patient Katie). I keep hearing that it's possible to find something great that's close to work and really cheap, so I keep holding out. But I did have great fun on the hunt today.

I found two kids (an American guy and an English-speaking Vietnamese girl) who were looking for a third for their house, but I didn't realize just how far away it was. So this afternoon I went down to one of the motorbike taxi guys who's always hanging out on the corner, and asked him to take me there.

(Preface: So far every place I've gone has taken no more than 5 minutes by motorbike)

So we take off.

10 minutes in he stops to ask for directions. Although I don't speak Vietnamese, I'm pretty sure the response was something like "wow, that's a really long way, just keep going and going and going."

So we went and went and went.

At which point I think "I'm probably not going to live here." Reason being: I'm pretty much taking for granted that one minor motorbike accident while in Vietnam is inevitable. They've happened to everyone I know. But if I'm on a motorbike ten times more than I've been planning on with this commute, that's TEN accidents, and a lot of sucking on exhaust fumes. So I'll just go for educational purposes - to help me see what I should really be able to expect for the money.

Traffic is too congested so we off-road it for a little while.

Stop and ask for more directions, receive more or less the same response as before. Repeat 14 times.

Blow through a red light with no less than 75 oncoming motorbikes. And again. And again. This makes the driver chuckle heartily, and me too for some reason. And every time he gives me the thumbs up and says "very good, very good." (Regretably, I didn't have my camera with me, but I took a few representative photos upon my return, to give you a sense of the chaos that is Saigon's traffic)

Stop for gas.

Drive and drive and drive.

Arrive at house, check it out, realize that both the house and the inhabitants are really very cool, but I just. can't. handle. that drive.

Hop back on motorbike and begin return journey.

Accept a cigarette from the driver (whose name is Hae, we're friends by this point, and are finding one another highly entertaining). Would have been rude not to, right?

Then eat the thing he gives me, the remains of which I have pictured below. Tasted a lot like a sweet potato. Probably was - wouldn't know. I'm sure it was a health hazard, but will speed the adjustment of my immune system, so I'm all in support.

Stop at a random juice stand on the side of the road and sit for about 10 minutes to have some juice (because you're in the middle of a taxi ride home, this is all very logical).

While at the juice stand he pretends to read the Louise Erdrich novel that I have for some reason brought along, occasionally pointing at the woman on the cover and then me going "same same." Surely you see the resemblance, right? I know I do my hair like that all the time.

We eventually arrive safely home. In the meantime I have seen the following people on motorbikes:

• A woman with an infant, and I'm talking newborn baby, on the back
• About 45 grandmas at the wheel
• And a girl in stiletto heels, driving the thing like a BMXer. See, one element of driving these things is that, every now and then, you have to stick your foot down and scrape it along the ground to help keep balance. I found this action in stiletto heels to be profoundly funny.

[caption id="attachment_261" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Oh look! I found another one . . . "][/caption]

I'm lovin' it.

Submitted by Jacko.

If anyone has any other pictures they would like published please forward them to our email address. nztaxiblog@gmail.com

Editor

NZTAXIBLOG

KEN DOBINSON, former NSW Roads and Traffic Authority Director
current Director of the advocacy group FROGS, or 10,000 Friends of Greater Sydney

The charging system on sections of Sydney’s road network needs to be applied more cleverly in the interests of better traffic management, says former Roads and Traffic Authority Director Ken Dobinson.

‘We do need a charging system on sections of our road network,” he says, rejecting the notion of a CBD congestion charge like that imposed in London.

“We already have it on [freeway] tolls, but we should do it more cleverly and get it to manage traffic better.”

Mr Dobinson says in an interview that Sydney’s freeway system, like many in the world, was planned properly.

However the plan was compromised by political decisions like cash backs on the Orbital and no tolls on the M5, which was planned with a toll and now gets overused, and a toll on the Lane Cove Tunnel, which is then not used enough.

Mr Dobinson, director of advocacy group ’10 Thousand Friends of Greater Sydney’ (FROGS) is to chair the Future City Transport Summit.

He says the city’s transport problems have resulted not so much from lack of funding but from imprudent spending and poor political decisions.

“We are spending enough money on transport in Sydney; we’re just wasting it by being over-indulgent on projects, for example the Cross City Tunnel and the Lane Cove Tunnel.

What we should be doing is spending on worthwhile projects like accelerating the clearways program and the bus program, buying more buses and getting metro trains to replace a lot of our double deckers.”

Mr Dobinson says the “carrot and stick” approach is very useful in getting people to change their behaviour. “Certainly we got the stick with the fuel prices rises but we’re missing out on the carrot. You can’t expect people to accept changes like that unless you give them an alternative mode to use.

“In this case we have very poor public transport in certain areas and in some areas like the north-west region we have none.

“I’m hoping that the summit will provide a better understanding of Sydney’s transport problems and some great ideas on how to make it work.”

Further information: www.futurecitytransport.com.au

Any one reading your political statements will surely think the country is going broke. The ACT Party is committed to ballancing the books.Labour had spent $20Billion extra in core spending since 2000. this money has been wasted as no socio-econimic indicators have changed that matter. National promises the same. Some may ask why you can not make a decent living driving taxis anymore. It is because of the cost plus fare increases we see every day. People vote with their feet , and yet major taxi companies up and down the country are discounting contract work to below cost levels while trying to charge like a wounded bull.
Richard Wright made sence yet again , you can not make as income $2000 a week, it is unlikly that any taxi driver is paying tax on $1000 a week either. but telling lies is not new to taxi drivers. I for one always devide by half what taxi company managers tell me. The industry is about to face the biggest change since 1989, I will again be involed with this starting from Christchurch Why ? because it has the largest number of private cars on the road and a small 7% of people using public transport. For me this shows it has a massive untapped market. Both large taxi companies here have been through a new manager every two years for the last eight and they still dont understand how to grow their business. Has anybody seen a brail sign in a taxi yet, lets hope the tickets dont flow to soon .

The Victorian Taxi Association will fight at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal the State Government's mandate to have security screens installed in all taxis by Christmas.

But the Victorian Taxi Drivers Association says operators are out of touch with the dangers of driving at night.

Victorian Taxi Association chief executive Neil Sach said operators did not oppose making screens available, but the low demand from drivers made it an irrational directive.

Mr Sach said the authorised screen did not fit all types of taxis and its safety had not been thoroughly tested to the association's satisfaction.

"The VTA totally rejects the outrageous assertion that operators will be revengeful towards drivers who ask for a screen; it tarnishes the character, ethics and standing of the majority of operators," he said.

Driver association spokesman Tom Henderson said he feared some operators would bully their drivers not to ask for screens if the Government backed down and made them optional.

"The association does have a valid point, that the screens don't entirely protect drivers from being attacked, but some protection is better than none," he said.

http://www.news.com.au:80/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24458182-661,00.html

Because Marks and Spencer opened it’s doors on Friday! Of course, the majority of the English Virtual Village staff went in on the opening day. To be honest, it’s not that great, but I’ve finally been able to get some decent tea. Although the Chinese love their tea, it’s all that fancy green tea, jasmine tea – all I wanted was some bog-standard Tetleys or Yorkshire Tea. In the end I’ve finally been able to get some M&S breakfast tea and it will do fine.

Anyway, sounds exciting eh? Well, M&S opening isn’t the only thing to have happened in my life since my last video update. I’ve only gone and joined a team in the Shanghai Darts League. Yep – throwing the arrows from the ocky is my new pastime. It’s a good laugh – you don’t have to be any good (which is good for me, because I’m not) and it’s basically about having a few beers and meeting new people.

I’ve also joined a football team, and it’s my first training session on Wednesday – it better go well as I’ve bought loads of gear! Although, I've received an email this afternoon and there's over 35 people on the mailing list so they better have more than one team!

There’s been the national holidays over here this last week, so there’s been no darts or football league on. On top of that, loads of restaurants have been shut and loads of Chinese workers have been off work.

Anyway, other than that – I’ve been out quite a bit with workmates, but nothing else really to report. So I thought I’d mention some of the crazy stuff that happens when living in China.

• At work – we get food delivered to the office. Often ordered by text or MSN, it then gets delivered by the same guy who comes 3-4 times a day delivering to different people. Noodle Soup is about 90p and beef & rice is about 60p. I haven’t cooked anything yet – in fact, I don’t think we have any pans. I only found out on Friday that we don't have an oven when I wanted to buy some frozen Yorkshire Puddings from M&S. On Tuesday, my food for the whole day cost £3.50. Why would I bother cooking?
• The language barrier has scared me, although I’m starting to get to grips with it. For the first week or two, I had to have my address written down (in both Chinese & English) so that I could get home in a taxi. I now know my address, along with the neighbouring streets plus the words for straight ahead, go left, go right and stop here. The price is ridiculous – we went about 15 miles the other day and it cost about £3.
• They have a bank note for the equivalent of both 8p and 0.8p – this means it is literally not worth the paper it’s written on.
• Went to a bar the other day for a Men’s Night. It is not much different from a ladies night when the women get free entry/cheaper drinks etc. However, between 9:30 and 11:30 the beer & whiskey for men is free! Unbelievable this place is still in business – unsurprisingly it was packed and everyone was hammered by 11:31.
• There’s an apartment complex a couple of miles from ours – apparently it houses 20,000 people! There’s 20m people living in Shanghai, but I couldn’t believe the size of something that houses that many people.
• If you’re Chinese and you want to leave the country, even for a holiday, you have to have £10,000 in the bank otherwise you can’t leave. That means that the rich can leave whilst the poor have to stay. Something’s wrong there...

I can think of loads of other wierd stuff, but I think I’ll leave it there for the time being. I’m going to the Formula 1 GP in a fortnight, so I’ll do a video diary for that. I’ve uploaded some more pictures on Picasa – the images are here:
My Photos

Speak to you soon,

Paul...

Releasing the Pre-Election Fiscal and Economic Update (Prefu) ahead of the November 8 election, Treasury said the outlook had deteriorated sharply since the May budget.

Revenue was predicted to be down by just under a $1 billion a year until 2012/2013 and Government costs were rising.

The forecasts made grim reading for any politician hoping to make big spending promises in the election campaign and showed that on current spending there was less than $500 million in the kitty for next year's budget.

Cash deficits - the bottom line after all infrastructure funding and payments to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund are made - are predicted to blow out from about $3 billion a year to about $6 billion a year for the next five years.

Another indicator of the health of the Government's books also showed red ink for the first time in more than a decade.

Treasury said operating balances after bookkeeping adjustments were predicted to fall into deficit for the first time since 1994 reaching $3.2 billion by 2012/2013.

As a result of the deficits, the Government's financial assets would be run down and Government debt would increase from under 20 percent of GDP to about 25 percent by 2012.

Finance Minister Michael Cullen said his paying down of debt and investments in infrastructure over the last nine years meant New Zealand was better off than most to weather the international credit crisis.

Dr Cullen said the scale of international problems was unprecedented.

"What we thought we knew even five months ago has been overtaken by events," Dr Cullen said.

"The rainy day has now arrived."

He had been assured that both the New Zealand and Australian banking sectors were fundamentally sound.

He noted for the first time since he became finance minister that he was having to explain why the books looked worse than predicted.

Despite that, Dr Cullen said now was the not time for "a slash and burn response" to government spending, or more tax cuts.

He said the Government was maintaining a steady as she goes, prudent approach.

Dr Cullen signalled an incoming government would have to look at forecast increases in spending such as the large boost signalled to the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

The tough times meant there would have to be review of such "low priority" spending to fund more productive new initiatives.

Dr Cullen said he had been told that both New Zealand and Australia's banking systems were sound and would emerge in better shape than many others around the world.

He was not too concerned at the increase in debt to 25 percent of GDP and believed it could be trimmed back towards his 20 percent target in the medium term.

National's finance spokesman Bill English said the state of the books was an indictment on Dr Cullen's handling of the economy.

"New Zealand can no longer afford Michael Cullen and Labour's big-spending low-growth policies," Mr English said.

"The figures outlined in the Prefu are a bit worse than we expected, and we are currently digesting them. However, National is not content to run a decade of deficits.

"But slamming the brakes on at this point would make things worse. The way out is to control the growth of Government spending and grow the economy. That will require a fresh approach."

National is announcing its tax cuts policy on Wednesday.

NZPA.

The purchase of Mersey Radio Meter Cabs Ltd was transacted by CityFleet UK Pte Ltd, which is 51 per cent owned by Cabcharge's partner ComfortDelGrop Corp Ltd of Singapore.

"This transaction again demonstrates our vision to expand our operations throughout the UK and the establishment of sound businesses in the respective cities where we already operate, providing the base to leverage other opportunities as they arise," Cabcharge chairman and chief executive Reginald Kermode said.

Merseyside, founded in 1958, operates a radio circuit with a total fleet of 400 licensed Hackney taxis.

With its acquisition, CityFleet now has a fleet of 4,500 taxis on its radio circuits in London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

All of the group's taxis in the UK offer the Cabcharge taxi account service which allows for cash free travel.

http://news.theage.com.au:80/business/cabcharge-expands-presence-in-uk-20081003-4tf2.html

Callum Brown submitted the following:

Rich (can I call you Rich?) the only gross misrepresentations are the outlandish conclusions that you have tried to draw for the benefit of your own arguement.
I do find this highly entertaining in that you have seen an adv on Trademe, know nothing about the figure posted and how it is reached,. have then drawn a number of conclusions to support an arguement that you want to get across and tried to present these conclusions as fact.
Add to this you are in Wellington but then decide to call an Auckland Driver who has been back at University and not driving for us for the better part of four months. Since that time we have got the Telecom contract in Auckland and an International Hotel Chain. So it is a much different picture in Auckland now regarding driver earnings. But that doesn’t stop you from trying to present that as current

You then say you predict that the commerce commision is likely to be involved based on your outlandish conclusions. Well I’d say bring that one on, we’ve been their before and look what happened. But I’d say they have enough of their own trouble with the Commerce Commission.

Add to that, that in Auckland the Average taxi driver from a reputable company only makes about that 1700-1800 per week if they are lucky and most of our guys are now regularly well over that. Wellington is a whole different story But once again If guys want to know what they can really earn come in and talk to me, I am happy to show them, but I am still not going to put it on a public blog site more for the protection of my drivers businesses than anything else

For the record we have always erred on the side of caution with any figures we put out and always back up the claims with facts and figures when drivers come in.
We have guys that actually do significantly better than the figure on Trademe but yes there is tax and operating expenses like in any business.
Even any job one goes for in the real world (where I came from).. e.g. IT business Analyst 100k per annum, What do I have to pay tax on that? yes of course you do you muppet.

Did he also inform you that he has another Green Cab???
He doesn’t have to deduct payments of $40,000 as he already owned the vehicle and it was bought used. He was also there from the start.

I am surprised that there is so much interest in Green Cabs
especially when we look at the other alternatives.
Corporate
30k franchise fee, levy $550 per month $2 for every job

WCT
$85k share (and we won’t even talk about how that got up to $85k)
0r you can pay 1040 per month after you have paid the levy and leased a share which I hear is going up again

A similar story with Auckland Co-op with a share at 45k
or
drivers can pay a similar figure as at WCT but apparantly Barry has told shareholders that soon they will get $200 per week for the lease of the share and the poor old driver still has to pay levies after that.

So lets look at the whole picture shall we… Green Cabs looks like a much better deal now doesn’t it!!

For the record
I don’t expect the misinformation being spread about us to ever stop, people are just trying to protect their patch.
If you want the truth and I suspect you can’t handle the truth (sorry about that couldn’t resist) come in and find out for yourself
Great to know that there’s still so much interest in the green machines though.

Callum, Boss and Richard Wright, (as always we welcome your feedback) but suggest that you find a more appropriate place to continue with this debate. We suggest hiring the Stadium, or forwarding your comments directly to Callum.

NZTAXIBLOG

Callum,

I predict that Wellington Combined and Auckland Co-op will shortly lodge complaints with the Commerce Commission and the Advertising Standards Authority about what appears to be your gross misrepresentations on taxi driver "earnings" in your fleet.

Even your own drivers rebut your outlandish earnings claims.

I asked the driver who is selling his Prius on Trade Me how much he "earns".

Refer http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=179714365

He says the average Auckland turnover is only $1700 a week. That's only $85,000 a year turnover (not gross or net profit).

From that he has to deduct payments on a $40,000 car and monthly levies of $580 before he even starts covering all the other costs, let alone paying himself a living wage adn recovering the $15,000 franchise fee.

Small wonder the driver is selling out and going back to university.

So just some quick answers on this one

We don’t have hourly waged drivers

It is listed in the Jobs section so that anyone looking to work in transportation can see it

Operating costs are less with a hyrid

I am more than happy to dicuss and show examples of what drivers are earning in the office but not in an online forum.

I can say that I’m pretty sure no one is earning 300k per annum
It does sound as though our drivers could already be at the upper end of the earnings spectrum which is great news. After that has always been and will continue to be one of our primary goals.

One thing we are trying to get drivers to see is the benefits of Treating owning or driving a taxi as their own business 100% instead of just just being a taxi driver.
Geez even leasing a car needs to be looked at as a serious option, why because it is tax deductible, as is a whole list of other things most drivers that I talk to don’t even think about claiming.

Callum,

You say in your Trade Me Jobs ads (for positions in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch) that your drivers can “earn (sic) $100,000 a year”.

I refer to: http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Jobs/Transport-logistics/Other/auction-179851186.htm

This raises some serious questions.

You have listed this a job. Are you seriously saying that an employee taxi driver can earn $100k a year? Is this before or after PAYE tax?

We hear that you are forced to hire drivers because you cannot get enough owner/operator franchisees to buy into your dream.

Your employee drivers earn $15 an hour. Even on a 70 hour week (which none of them work) that is still only $1,050 a week or $54,600 a year gross.

Less PAYE at @22% ($231) thats $819 a week for 70 hours or $11.71 an hour net. Not much above minimum wage.

If its not a job then its an owner operator/franchisee position. In which case why is it listed as a job?

So now it appears you are claiming that a Green Cab owner-operator can earn over $100k pa.

At the very least you are confusing turnover with tax paid profit. That’s a bit alarming for a man in your position.

Turnover is not earnings. No taxi owner operator in the country can generate a tax paid net profit of $100,000.

An owner operator should budget his turnover on the rule of thirds: one third for operating costs, one third for taxes, and one third for tax paid earnings.

Turnover of $100k a year can be achieved - it’s only 2,000 a week for 50 weeks. But it needs 70 hours a week to get it. So, following the rule of thirds, the taxable income is $33,000 less PAYE at 22% ($7,260) equals $25,740.

70 hours a week times 50 weeks equals 3,500 hours behind the wheel each year. $25,740 divided by 3,500 hours equals $7.35 an hour net. That appears to be well below minimum wage.

So where do you get your claim that a taxi driver can earn $100,000 a year? An owner operator would have to turn over $6,000 a week (or $300,000 a year for a 50 week year) to “earn” $100,000 a year.

$6,000 a week equals a weighted average of $85 an hour turnover for every hour of a 70 hour week. This would also assume that the driver is on the road working for every one of those 70 hours. No provision is made for R&M, admin, etc

Please provide evidence in support of your claims.

If your figures are false then your advertising should be changed immediately.

Regards,

Richard Wright

TRADE ME JOBS - 04.10.2008

Owner/Operator and/or Taxi Drivers

Company: Green Cabs Limited

Location: Wellington City, Wellington

Type: Full time, Permanent

Pay and benefits: Earn up to $100K

Listed: Wed, 1 Oct

Green Cabs is a growing taxi Company, committed to our environmental values as well as growing our customer base to increase work for our drivers.

We need drivers who have great Wellington area knowledge and excellent customer service skills to be able to interact with our Corpoarte Customers.

We have secured the Telecom contract initially in Auckland, with overflow work to all main centres, but need more drivers to meet these demands.

We have a large Hotel Chain Contract, which is growing and will become a main contributor of income to our Wellington fleet.

Your earning potential can easily be $100K, depending on the time and effort you put into your business.

Be your own boss, create the lifestyle you deserve, by becoming part of the Green Cabs Organisation.

Call me now, I can sit down with you and talk about how Greencabs is the best choice for your future.

You must be eligible to work in NZ to apply for this role.

The departure from Sydney was interesting enough with the taxi driver being a rather subdued chap for the first ten minutes until a motorbike rider cut in front of him. Cue angry tirade with some colourful language. This didn't bother me in the slightest as I can only share his frustration of such incidents that happen a touch oft in Sydney traffic. What I was worried about was that his anger was so extreme he started turning around to talk to me whilst taking his hands off the steering wheel to gesticulate! Made it to the airport though and with one of the more entertaining rides in a while.

Knowing I was not going to get a decent coffee after leaving home, I prepared myself for the worst. Not well prepped enough though. T1 at Sydney is undergoing renovations and currently the three coffee shops are all part of the Santos chain. Got a sandwich and ordered a double espresso.

I have had some interesting to downright shit double espressos in the past few years, however I have not seen one that so missed the mark in size as the one I had today. Previous photos from Kafenio show a what a double espresso should look like - approx a half full 90ml glass. The one from Santos this morning (clearly made via the BS fully automatic machine there) was in a regular sized (take out) coffee cup, with just over half the cup full! What the Fuck was that! Two sips and I was done. It really was just brown and water. Didn't even bother to try an espresso at one of the other outlets. Anytime the coffee maker - I can't say barista for this one - doesn't even have to grind, fill the filter, tamp it and lock in the filter holder to the machine BEFORE placing the cup underneath it, pressing a single button and letting the machine stop it at a pre-determined point... the coffee ain't gonna be that good.

Knowing the next options ahead of me were not looking good (in-flight coffee and US coffee), I am priming myself for the lack of real coffee, but maybe going to aim for the heavily caffeinated energy drink crap in the next couple of weeks.

The flight was thankfully non-eventful given the recent spate of issues the particular airline has recently experienced. Again had a row of seats in cow class for myself, so can never complain about this part. Great cabin crew again and kudos to Shelley and Glenn for the chocolate hunt they took on for me at 0300 AEST when I was in dire need of a sugar hit. The hot chocolate may not have been the best, but I defy anyone to have made one for me with such care and concern.

My pickup at SFO made for another interesting, however less eventful ride to the one in Sydney. Very helpful gent as well and will definitely use his company services for transport the next time I am in this city.

Picked up my car and decided to give the US roadways a bit of a go. Not a big issue in getting used to driving on the wrong side of the road, however the left turns where lanes are not clearly marked have been the harder ones to work with. Will be getting a bit of driving in over the next week in particular and should hopefully be more relaxed an comfortable by then.

What I was surprised with was the number of SUVs that were of gigantic, near monster truck like size! Much unlike the standard SUV / 4WD vehicles that are all across Sydney. Makes it harder when on approaching to overtake them, a number of their drivers ever so casually change lanes without indicating. Just did my best to stay a distance from these trucks.

Hotel is great, however the room service / in room dining menu is limited and the food is really sub par. I will be locating the nearest food options nearby tomorrow, then during the week will aim to take as many dinners in in surrounding areas to the office at places recommended by my beautiful friend Wendy (a former SJ native).

Ok, time for some zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz now. Not really tired, however have a long day coming up with some wonderful company....YAY!

(in neuen Laufklamotten!) Ich bin um 06.15h (.. ja,ich weiss , ich konnte nicht mehr schlafen ..!) losgelaufen, war nach 6-7 Minuten an der Via Atlantico am Copacabana-Strand .. einer der 10 besten Laufspots der Welt

[1]: Rechts der Atlantik, links die Häuser mit den wohl ziemlich teuren Appartments, den Zuckerhut im Blick (klar, es kommt auf die Laufrichtung an!), und das bei rund 24 Grad – zugegeben, etwas warm für diese Uhrzeit .. gegen Ende wurde ich dann auch immer langsamer!

Man hat irgendwie den Eindruck, dass es hier mehr Taxis als ‚Normalautos’ gibt, machmal ist alles gelb (NYC grüßt!). Die Taxifahrer fahren wie .. naja, meine Nachbarn denken über mich vermutlich genauso .. (-:!

(Taxiinvasion in Rio)

Alle drei, vier Häuser (na ja zumindest auf den Hauptverkehrs-/Fußgängerwegen) gibt es hier etwas zu essen. Leckere gefüllte Teigtaschen, auch aus Kartoffelteig und frittiert, richtig guten Espresso und Säfte aus Früchten, die zumindest ich nicht kenne! Iregndwie frage ich mich, wer das alles essen soll .. aber scheinbar geht’s weg!

(Tude bem .. alles OK!),

Annette und Renate: Hier wäre für Euch das (Schuh)Paradies auf Erden!

Johannes und Hubert; Jungs, für Euch wäre hier einfach Hölle auf Erden!

.. es gibt hier eine Unmenge an Damen-Schuhgeschäften mit Schuhen, bei denen ich mich frage, wie die Mädels damit auf unebenem Pflaster laufen können! .. aber sie schaffen das ziemlich elegant .. Brasilianerinnen halt!

(Das Schuhparadies)

Alle Schuhe kann man in Raten bezahlen! Wenn eine ‚dünne Sohle mit drei Riemchen’ (also ein Paar Damenschuhe!) 120.- BRL (knapp 50.- EUR) kostet, steht auf jedem Preisschild, dass man in vier monatlichen Raten zahlen kann .. ein Zeichen, dass die Menschen hier doch mit jeden Centavo rechnen müssen! (Th.)

Ich übernehme..

War heute Morgen ganz schön gefrustet, als das mit dem Blogsetting nicht so geklappt hat wie ich mir das vorgestellt habe. Zuerst hat es mit den Bildern in den Text einarbeiten nicht geklappt und dann ist der Eintrag auch noch am falschen Platz erschienen. Das sind wohl die nervigen Seiten am Blog. Aber sonst macht es eigentlich Spaß nach Hause (also ins Hotel) zu kommen und sich mitzuteilen;  .. schöner ausgedrückt euch an unserem Leben hier teilhaben zu lassen.

Aber nun genug sinniert.

Wir waren auf dem Zuckerhut und dort oben ist es wirklich “Zucker“, will heißen eine geniale Über – und Aussicht auf die Stadt und ihre Strände und Berge. Haben uns viel Zeit gelassen und alles auf uns wirken lassen und am Ende festgestellt, dass wir uns sogar gut ausgeruht hatten. Hier ein paar Impressionen:

Zurück mit dem Bus ins Hotel und dort gab es dann die freudige Überraschung. Ja!!!! Thomas Gepäck ist da. Ab jetzt wird umgezogen was das Zeug hält. Kann Mann auch verstehen nach ganzen 3 schweißtreibenden Tagen (es hat hier immerhin ca. 30 Grad im Schnitt). Und Frau „ge-riecht“ das auch.

Also dann bis demnächst

A Taxi outside the Wellington Town Hall.

Submitted by John.

"Bowels of the earth"  submitted the following:

“Now is the winter of our discontent”

To: The “Boss” you really have an axe to grind dont you? All I can say is welcome to the real world of Taxis.

A world full of promises that ultimately turn out to be BS,in this dog eat dog industry.

It has been said before on this and other taxi blogs that cab drivers earn well below the minimum wage,only a few rake in the dough.

A question “Boss”, are you a Virgin or a Vamp in the scheme of things?

If a Virgin I can understand how your may have been led down the garden parth, if a vamp ..well theres no point in crying over spilt milk.

To CB -stop and smell the bloody roses.

"Boss" submitted the following:

"Green cabs said”
There are also no draconian management styles, Green Cabs is one of the few companies where drivers can walk into the managers offices, sit down, tell us their concerns, ideas for improvement etc and leave feeling respected and listened to
Yeah right, along as the persons concerns/ ideas/ gripes are not different to that of managment. Alot of promises were made at the start up of green cabs and at the takeover of regency and wellington city, what was said when you were approaching drivers at the start up of green cabs, leave the company you are with now, come to green cabs,where youll make $100 grand plus a year driving your cab, is it not true that most if not all of your start up drivers/leasees have since left/sold there green cabs/ giving up their leases because they found this not to be true. Or some leasees might have got near that magic total within a year but sadly discovered that they would have to part with 70 % of that total back to the company in lease fees etc. Is it not true that your leases are some of the most expensive in wellington.Is it not true that lots of your leasees have left because at the end of the week the company prospers from their lease money/levies, but the poor bastard driving /leasing their cab struggles to put food on his or her table..Promises were also made to wellington city contractors, none of which have happened, contractors are being told they will have to fork out on systems for their vehicles that will cost each contractor thousands of dollars, this was not mentioned at the welcome aboard speech.. at the end of the day our wallets are empty but we have a warm feeling (bit like pissing in your pants) of being respected and listened too.

Callum Brown from Green Cabs NZ submitted the following:

Boss I am not sure where you get your information from but it appears to be incredibly unreliable and largely false.
Ok where do I start.
No when I say we listen to drivers it doesn’t depend on it agreeing with management. We have made a number of changes as a result of requests from Drivers. Novel I know but in my view, 1. it’s their company too and 2. I don’t have the monopoly on good ideas, hell it took me 35 years to come up with this one. Based on that I’ll be 70 before I’m due for my next so yeah I listen to a lot of people especially my drivers. There are a few options available to lessees and many given they don’t have to buy a car do very very well. Yes some have left but no it is not true that the majority have left in fact we still have many that have been there since the start. Some have gone on to buy their own but many still lease. Of the few that left some came to us to make it easier to get into WCT but hey thats life. Some decided theyed rather cruise and pay $35 - $50 per month for a levy. Ce la vie on that one too.
Not one has sold their cab. One has switched to Auckland Co-op and that was after they offered him a free 40K share free respray of his vehicle free equipment and free signage…. again ce la vie
The 70% figure not even close to reality. We have guys leasing giving as little as 30% to the company and most of that goes to the veicle owner. Most would be around 40%. This is guys leasing a vehicle not owning remember.
yeah the leases are at the higher end but once you compare lease + petrol it actually works out cheaper for the driver and you are talking about leasing a new 45K vehicle.
Lesses make more driving for Green Cabs than they do for companies that work the ranks provided they do the same hours. What we do find happens a lot is that many drivers end up doing less hours as they make what they used to make (after the lease) in less hours.
Perhaps your group of disgruntled individuals would like to come and talk to me directly so you can get facts rather than the misinformation you seem intent on doing your best to spread.
What Wellington City Cabs Drivers are now being told has little to do with us. In fact we are trying to move things along so the wishes of the WCC drivers can be met as quickly as possible.

I do find it somewhat amusing that you don’t want the rest of punters on here to know who you really are so we are now at 3 posts with pedominantly false information. I wonder how many we need before it can be considered a campaign.

BOTE - thanks, I definitely try to.
This industry is 100x more colourful than IT and the charachters are much more interesting and colourful too.

Teletubby submitted the following:

TRADE ME AUCTION ITEM FOR TAXI DRIVERS

Toyota Prius 2003
Green Cab ready to roll
No bids | No reserve | Closes: Tue, 14 Oct

Starting bid: $ Auto-bid

Kilometres: 164,000km

Body: Green, 5 door, Hatchback

Fuel type: Petrol

Engine: 4 cylinder, 1500cc, Automatic

Import history: Imported

Registration expires: Feb 2009

WOF expires: Dec 2008

Stereo description: 6 disc cd changer with radio

Features: ABS brakes, Air conditioning, Alloy wheels, Central locking, Driver airbag, Passenger airbag

The company:

Green Cabs is New Zealand’s fastest growing taxi company and is committed to environmental values as well as a growing customer base to increase work for drivers.

Green Cabs have secured preferred supplier arrangements with well known corporates in Auckland, as well as hotel work which is growing and will become a main contributor of income to the fleet.

The vehicle: 2003 Toyota Prius, 167,000km, Reversing Camera

It is fully equipped to operate as a Green Cab and has been doing so for the past few months. My reason for selling is that I’m returning to University full time, so won’t be driving.

Has been well maintained with regular oil and filter changes. These cars just keep on going. There is a taxi driver in Canada who reports using his Prius for 400,000km with nothing but regular maintenance required.

As a taxi-driver in Auckland with a Prius, you can expect to get 4.8L/100km saving enormous amounts of money at the pump.

This is an excellent opportunity to get on-board with Green Cabs as these vehicles are in short supply at the moment.