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If Taxis Want Young Aussies To Start Using Them Again

They Need To Take Safety Seriously

[by Courtney Fry]
The other night while watching number of people that have had It left me, a teenage woman,
a stream for Survivor US, I was similar, if not more [screwed] up, stuck half-drunk, in tears, and
repeatedly shown the same experiences was alarming and completely lost in a strange
30-second ad for a national taxi upsetting. city on the side of the road at
service. In what appears to be 2.30am.
an appeal to younger Aussies, For me, it was my first night
it presented hailing taxis on the out in Kings Cross back in I quickly found out that my
street as a better option than 2010 – I was a fresh 19-year-old experience wasn’t alone as
waiting for a rideshare service who had only just moved from the replies started rolling in,
like Uber or Ola. my small coastal hometown with a whole lot of young
a few months before, and people – some men, but
This would be well and good, the big smoke was still very mostly women, non-binary, and
if the taxi industry wasn’t overwhelming. I’d finished up at gender-nonconforming folk –
notorious for cabbies refusing a gig in Surry Hills and made my recounting times they’d been
fares they deem to be “too way to a friend’s nightclub in the f.... over by taxis, each more
short”. Research into the Cross, and when it came time worrying than the last, to be
decline of the taxi industry was for me to head back to where I honest.
published in late 2018, showing was staying in Newtown, finding
that younger Australians are available taxis proved to be If anything, it surprised me
actively seeking out alternatives impossible. that so many of us have had
to taxis, a number which I’m these experiences with taxis
sure has only continued to I was told it was changeover and not found ourselves in
increase in the year since the time, and the one taxi driver that more terrifying and dangerous
research surfaced. I actually managed to get to stop situations.
for me yelled something to the
After the 10th or so viewing, tune of “NOT FAR ENOUGH!” and I know that this is just a small
I took to Twitter to vent my sped off with the door still half- sample size of people, but it
frustrations, and the sheer open as I was trying to get in. alarmed me that this happens,

38 DRIVE A2B magazine · November 2019