Thursday, Dec. 31, 2009
Diary of a Taxi Driver
Riding Shotgun as Local Cabbies Gear Up for Amateur Night
A line of empty, idling cabs stretches for what seems like a half-mile at Broadway at the Beach, the exhaust sending small clouds of steam and smoke into the chilly night air. The cabbies are young and old, but mostly middle-aged men who've driven cabs somewhere else before moving to Myrtle Beach. They wait their turns in solitude with the radio and the occasional squawk of the dispatchers as their only companions. On a Friday night in mid-December it's slow, but it should pick up. Some cabbies, with seats reclined, grab a quick snooze knowing, or at least hoping it's about to get busy.
Every weekend these dedicated chauffeurs await the often-inebriated and exhausted to come spilling out from Celebrity Square's half-dozen nightclubs. It's midnight, still early, and in small groups the "fares," as the patrons are called, begin to arrive. The 42-degree night air doesn't stop the young women from wearing tiny skin-tight dresses and a few have trouble negotiating an intoxicated walk in spiked heals. They huddle together for warmth while Broadway security officers keep the cabs and their fares rolling through in a painfully slow procession. Every Friday and Saturday it's the same drill. Of course it's much busier at Broadway in the golf and tourist seasons, but year-round these cabbies know that here there's always a fare or two, and in December they might finish a 12-hour shift with $50 or $60 bucks to take home.
In a small town like Myrtle Beach many cab rides are alcohol-related, which is a no-brainer in light of increasingly stringent D.U.I. enforcement, including the crackdown that is in effect for the winter holiday season, none bigger than New Year's Eve (which is Thursday, in case you forgot). But in bigger cities cabs are a part of daily life, useful to commute to work, go shopping, to get to a dentist appointment, you name it. In New York City only a small percentage of Manhattanites even own cars, it's just too much trouble and too expensive - a single parking space in a midtown garage can lease for $250,000. In Boston a single space recently sold for $300,000. We don't have that kind of real estate issue here, and it seems everybody older than 17 drives a car every day. According to the Department of Transportation there are 237 million registered vehicles in the U.S. - that's nearly one for every man, woman and child. It was not always this way and the once-lucrative cab business has felt the crunch, with many Myrtle Beach cabbies earning half of what they did five years ago. Along the Grand Strand, where the number of cabs licensed to operate has grown at a much faster pace than the population or tourism, and with smaller tips, the business is not what it used to be, cabbies say.
With the busiest night of the year for local cabbies only days away, we rode shotgun to get a feel for this profession which has been paid homage by pop culture in many ways, from the classic Scorcese/DeNiro flick ``Taxi Driver'' to the late 70s/earlyl '80s sitcom ``Taxi'' to the 2004 comedy "Taxi" and indie rock darlings Death Cab for Cutie.
I'm sitting in a white 2002 Chrysler Town & Country van with Gary Weatherford. He's lived in Myrtle Beach for 33 years and driven a cab for the last 11. We're third in line for a pickup at the Broadway at the Beach cabstand, near Hard Rock Café and Shucker's Oyster Bar. The heat is blasting from the dashboard vents and I start shucking outer layers of clothing, as I'll be riding with Weatherford for the next couple of hours. The seats are soft leather and extremely comfortable, which is important if you must sit in a cab 12 hours a day, every day, like Weatherford does. "They have to be leather or vinyl," says Weatherford. "You've got to be able to keep them clean and sanitized in case someone throws up or bleeds." While no one has bled, at least lethally, in any one of Weatherford's cabs, through the years some five or six have vomited. "We charge $50-$100 extra [if somebody who is drunk] gets sick in the cab," said Weatherford. "We could be down for the night if that happens. No one wants to ride in a smelly cab. It's only a $35 fine if they get sick on the outside of the cab." He laughs at what he's just told me. "This is an old hillbilly town."
BIDDING, BACK-LOADING AND LONG-HOODING
Cabbies have their own language and a nearly impossible bidding system to determine pickups and drop-offs. While I found it difficult to understand "bidding" and "back-loading" and "long-hooding" a veteran like Weatherford knows just what's going on. "You get it down after a week or so," he said.
Weatherford, 52, is soft-spoken, always smiling and has a smooth Southern drawl. He quit smoking after a heart attack in 2007 and his cab is blissfully non-smoking. While some fares may complain, most, including me, enjoy the smoke-free ride. He drives the same cab every night, and rarely does anyone else get behind the wheel. The vehicle belongs to Beachside Cabs, the largest of the cab companies in the area, operating some two-thirds of all the cabs on the road. Beachside Cabs, Diamond Cabs and A-Taxi are all under the same ownership. Smaller cab companies and lots of independents, those who own and operate their own vehicles, make up the rest of the sizeable force. Other Grand Strand municipalities are home to localized cab companies who generally work their home turf, but places like Broadway at the Beach and The Masters Club are open to all. Those covering the airport need a special permit.
After 30-minutes we move up and into the loading zone, and hope for the best. Within a minute or so two couples arrive, open the sliding side door, and take their seats. "Is this the Cash Cab?!," yelled Wendy, our first fare who announced she and her party were from Winston-Salem, N.C. Wendy, a woman possibly in her 30s, joked about the popular Discovery Channel TV quiz show that puts contestants and viewers inside an actual NYC cab with quizmaster and real-life cabbie, Ben Bailey. Weatherford smiles and politely ignores the rhetorical question, one that he hears all the time.
"Hi folks. Where are you headed?" he asks. "We're going to the KOA," answered Wendy, with the same enthusiasm a 10-year-old might say "We're going to Disneyland!" Her North Carolina accent is so strong; it's difficult at times to understand her enthusiastic remarks. The two couples tell us they visit Myrtle Beach two to four times a year and always stay at the campground, which accommodates RVs, tents, and has permanent cabins, where Wendy and her crew like to stay. "I am drunk as a cooter," she said, and the other three fares agree and laugh heartily. "I'm also bi-sexual."
Exactly why fares share so many details to a complete stranger is something unique to cab rides. HBO managed a long-running TV franchise, "Taxi Cab Confessions" that shows fares sharing unbelievably graphic details of their lives on hidden camera. It's Wendy's friend and traveling companion's fortieth birthday, and the two women, and their unusually quiet husbands, have been at Crocodile Rock's Dueling Piano Bar for hours. "We've been drinking since five [p.m.]," she said. I glanced at the dashboard clock - 12:20 a.m..
SOBERING STATS
Tougher D.U.I. laws, very public roadblocks and sobriety checkpoints, have helped the cab business only slightly; the social crowd of the Grand Strand seems reluctant to give up cars and independence, choosing instead to roll the dice every time they drink and get behind the wheel. In 2008 South Carolina ranked sixth in the nation for alcohol-related vehicular fatalities, with 463 deaths. New York State, with a much larger population (including the largest city in the nation), reported 409 deaths during the same period. Texans, for some reason, are especially lousy drunk drivers, as the state ranks No. 1 in total alcohol-related vehicular fatalities with almost 1,500 deaths in 2008. Californians didn't fare much better. South Carolina ties North Dakota for the greatest percentage of alcohol related vehicular deaths out of all vehicular deaths - 50 percent. The lowest is Utah with 20-percent. The national average is 37-percent. The couples from Winston-Salem were smart to take a cab.
Beachside Cabs, Diamond Cabs and A-Taxi are once again offering the free Sober Ride program, this year for the entire week between Dec. 24 and Jan. 1. "Anyone who goes out and gets too drunk to drive their car home can call us and we'll take them home - for free," said Gary Pulsifer, Shift Supervisor for Beachside Cabs and its affiliates. "All they have to do is prove they have a car on the property, by showing us the keys and the car, and we'll take them home - for free." Yahnis Coastal and Better Brands, Inc., two of the largest beer distributors in the area, underwrite the program, which pays drivers for any free fares delivered safely to their homes. The program will accommodate intoxicated would-be drivers from Pawleys Island to Little River and west to Coastal Carolina University.
MAKING A BUCK THE HARD WAY
Delivering our fares from Broadway to the KOA on Fifth Avenue South in Myrtle Beach racked up $12.35 on the meter, which included $3 for the "extras." Each fare after the first pays $1 extra, hence the name. Weatherford receives 50-percent of the fare and is entitled to each of the $1 extras, so he pockets around $9 plus a $3 tip. Not bad money, if it came that easily and consistently all night - but it doesn't, and Weatherford, like all cabbies in his company, pays for his own gas.
We leave the KOA and move to another cabstand, The Myrtle Beach Greyhound Bus Terminal on Seventh Avenue North, and Weatherford radios his location to the dispatcher. It's dark and quiet at the terminal, which had been closed for hours. "We'll wait here for a call," said Weatherford, who is known to the dispatcher as No. 4. We're alone for 15-minutes until two other cabs arrive and park. Weatherford hits the power window button to talk to the nearest driver, who also works for Beachside Cab. The other driver has made about $40 bucks so far and is not optimistic for a great night ahead.
"This business will drive you crazy," said Weatherford, smiling. He seems very at ease and comfortable at a job he knows well. He says he's not willing to play the aggressive games other drivers might employ, but he does maintain certain camaraderie with them. "Cab drivers are shit-talkers," he said, smiling. "We call each other vulgar names and gossip all the time." Weatherford talks about other cabbies as if he's describing his dysfunctional family, one that he loves, but that he also knows is deeply flawed. He tells me about a practice many drivers use to squeeze out an extra few bucks; "long hooding," where a cabby will lie to the dispatcher about their exact location to appear closest to the pickup. The business is so ferociously competitive that when the dispatchers assign a fare, they cannot say exactly where the pickup is, as other drivers within the company, and other cab companies listen in, in an attempt to steal the fare. "If they get a call for a pickup at The Breakers Hotel on 21st Avenue," explains Weatherford, "and they know I'm at the Greyhound Terminal, they'll say 'No. 4 pickup. Go to Kings Highway and Third Avenue North.' When I get there, I call in and the dispatcher tells me another [location] to go, and to call in when I get there. I don't even know I'm going to The Breakers until I'm a block away. Some cab drivers carry scanners with them to listen in to where the fares are," said Weatherford.
He goes on to tell me about a practice called "back-loading." "That's when another driver in line behind you, like at Broadway, grabs a fare without waiting their turn. It's not illegal," he said, "but it's wrong, and it's against Broadway's rules." Another term is called "feeding," and it is when a dispatcher favors a specific driver and then gets a kickback. Weatherford denies that any of these practices go on at his company, but he has worked for other cab companies and he knows all too well how cutthroat the industry is. "Honest people have a hard time in this business."
Forty minutes go by and the dispatcher calls in a pickup for Weatherford. This fare is a regular, a local without a car, who uses cabs to get to work, or in this case, go out after work. We pick up the young man at the Atlantic Sands Motel and Apartments on Second Avenue South. He's the kitchen manager at a nearby restaurant and wants to head out for a few beers. We take him to local bar and he's there within five minutes. The tip and fare were around $6.
I began to calculate the savings of not driving a car and using a cab for all my own transportation needs. I'd save the $25,000 my Honda Element cost me (which includes interest), the gas (some $30 weekly), insurance ($100 monthly), repairs, tires, maintenance, and registration ($700) yearly. In the five years I've owned my car I estimate I've shelled out $43,000. At $14 per cab ride, average, which is high, that's some 3,000 cab rides, or two rides per day, 365 days per year, over five years, which is probably more than I'd need - I think I'd save money in the long run, and would definitely get more exercise by riding a bike or walking to the bank instead of driving the two blocks. Not such a bad deal, and like the Manhattanites who don't own cars, I'd keep my driver's license active, and rent a car for long trips or during especially busy times - but I'm sure I won't. Like most, I'm addicted to coming and going the minute it pleases me, and I won't wait the five-to-ten minutes it might take to summon a cab.
We decide to head back to Broadway at the Beach, but swing by The Masters Club to see how it looks. We weave in and out of unnamed, dark streets and alleys, and I learn more shortcuts in the two hours I'm with Weatherford than in my 13-years of living here. It's busy at the Masters Club, but not incredibly so. Twenty cabs are in line there, so we decide to take our chances at Broadway. It's 1:30 a.m., and while business is picking up, the line of cabs is now twice as long. "We make about half of what we used to make," said Weatherford, who wasn't complaining, just matter-of-factly sharing information. He's not a complainer. He likes driving his cab. "Reducing the number of cabs is really the only way for the money to come back to what it was - but I don't see that happening."
I decide to call it a night and he takes me to my car parked near the Hard Rock Café. Weatherford seems unfazed about the night ahead, his shift ending around 6 a.m. I'm thankful I don't have the hour-long (or longer) wait in front of me for the chance to earn another $10 bucks. It's now around 1:45 a.m. and about time for the rest of partiers at Broadway to go home. Most, like me, get in their cars. But the smart ones take a cab.
