THE DILEMMA OF FERRYING PEOPLE AROUND YOU SUSPECT TO BE DEALING DRUGS
This month I would like to touch on a subject which more than likely most of the cab trade has experienced ay one time or another and that is... drug dealers.
Without going into details, I have recently been involved with this matter which has highlighted the risk that the trade undertakes when picking up total strangers and transporting them from A to B... and sometimes from B to C, C to D and back to A.
As a hackney driver, I think that there is a slightly higher risk on the basis that a street or rank hiring is completely anonymous. No address, no phone number and no app connection to the customer.
With private hire bookings there is at least the identification of the phone number unless a ‘burner’ is used. So although I am on a circuit I mainly address this matter as a hackney where Mr or Ms Anonymous jumps into my cab off the street or from a rank.
During the pandemic, from March 2010 until August 2021, I took this time off and my cab stayed at home where my brake discs were able to gather rust. It was a hard time for me and my colleagues who did the same but there were some who did gruelling hours but still ended up with a pittance. I have absolutely no doubt that this was the same throughout the land in the cab trade.
Nevertheless, from what I have been told, drug dealers in the city were doing a roaring trade and using the local cabs on a frequent basis, which is where those drivers, who still ventured out, were getting extra long fares.
Now, before I am jumped on, I have to make it very clear that I do not know this as a fact as it is only what I have been told - but I consider it to be credible.
However, the very first job I did when I came back to work was, as it turned out, a drug run. I was merrily driving to a rank when I saw the hand go up and so I pulled over. Being my first job after so much time off it
66
felt quite strange, even after being in the trade for nearly forty-years. It was almost like the very first job I did when I started.
So I get the address and off we go. We get there and I am asked to wait and £20 is dropped onto the front passenger seat. He disappears and I get asked to go to another address... and then another... and then back to where I picked him up. Total on the meter £45 and I have just assisted a drug dealer.
Later during that night I get a circuit job to pick up at an address and activate ‘Arrived’. I get there and wait and after contemplating contacting the office as no one was coming from the address, two burly gents approach me from down the road and get in. I say to them “Sorry did we get the wrong address?” which was met with a grunt. I am asked or actually grunted at (in a foreign accent) to head to the centre of the city.
Now when I say these were ‘burly’ I actually mean built like the proverbial out-house, with hands like shovels and chins to match, but I am sure that their mothers loved them.
So off we go and I then I am eventually asked to pull in and I think: “Well that wasn’t too bad and there is £7 on the meter”. But then one gets out and off he goes whilst the other stays behind. To be honest if they both got out and left without paying I wouldn’t have actually minded having seen the scar on the face of one of them.
After a while the guy returns and off we go to another address, and then another and few more and back to where I picked them up with £30 on the meter which is dropped on the front seat and they leave.
I know exactly what you are thinking: “Why didn’t I get out and confront them asking where my tip was”. Actually, funnily enough it never crossed my mind!
So on my first day back to work I have had the pleasure of undertaking two drug runs completely and absolutely innocently... your Honour!
NOVEMBER 2021
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80
