Thursday 10 January 2008

The Taxi Driver that didn't know where he was.

The Irish Taxi regulator Kathleen Doyle was on Newstalk 106 last evening giving a general interview to George Hook, some of it was interesting;
George mentioned that he had taken a Taxi from a rank, wanting to go to Stilorgan. He said the driver had NO English! and didn't know or understand where Stilorgan was, George had to direct him using hand signals.
The Regulators reply was that from later this year, they will take over the licensing of Taxi drivers from the police and that an adequate knowledge of English would be a requirement, she added that the test would be more severe and would include "new Dublin"
My thoughts on this are;
Is an adequate knowledge of English not a requirement now? Surely if you are driving a cab in an English speaking country, you should be able to speak the language?
Stilorgan is not "new Dublin", one of the main arteries out of Dublin is the Stilorgan Road, it leads to Stilorgan, the first shopping centre ever built in Ireland was built in Stilorgan.
Stilorgan is "old Dublin" and any Taxi driver that doesn't know where Stilorgan is should never have passed a test to drive a Taxi in Dublin.
Hopefully the new test being devised will be a proper evaluation of a persons capacity to drive a Taxi and current drivers including yours truly will be required to sit it.

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