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The story about requiring credit card machines in cabs at the airport now got me to thinking, what are your opinions on local cabs? We all have to use them at times. Seems to me United has gone way downhill since the storm. Before the storm, I was always pretty pleased with them. Since then, I have had several encounters with rude drivers, those with minimal English, being clueless about how to get somewhere fairly simple and hair-raising, nearly airborne runs down St. Charles, darting in and out of traffic like we were in Rome or something. Didn't United drivers all used to own their own cabs? At least they are still better overall than some of the other outfits like White Fleet or Nighthawk. Some of their cabs are worse than vehicles I've been in in Africa or India. I rarely ever have occasion to use a cab in Metairie, but when I do, I always use Metry Cab and have never had an issue.

United is a coop. The cabs are individually owned but they pool for the back of the house resources. Most United Cab owners lease their cabs out when they are not working. That is why there is uneven service. There was uneven service with United pre-storm. You just don't remember it.

bam bam wrote: Most United Cab owners lease their cabs out when they are not working. That is why there is uneven service. There was uneven service with United pre-storm. You just don't remember it.

That makes sense. Considering the state I'm usually in when I have to use a cab, a few memory lapses are understandable! Oh well, at least with United, I figure most of the time my fare is not going to serve the jihad.

My old career, I dealt with cabs at the cruise terminal. The stories I could tell would curl your toes, including one incident of a cabbie "taking possession" of one of my crew members' bags, containing his flight ticket, passport and wages for 8 months work onboard ship. The bitch called his family in the Virgin Islands and tried to get "finders" money for it. Jesse Bridges and the Taxicab Bureau were of no help. Sometimes I believed they were in on the "incidents" we used to have. Finally had an officer friend scare the hell out of the cabbie and I met her at the police substation at the mall to retrieve the bag and contents.

Local cabs? Can't stand them, don't trust them and don't take them. Too many crooks in the biz from what I've seen over the years.