I used to work as a mini cab driver in London and really I never ever want to go back to this s..t.
Last time when i was made redundant i went back to mini cabbing temporarily just to make my living.
So i hired a car from a mini cab company, I had to pay them weekly rent of £150 + car rent £130 + xda rent £20 + insurance £50 (this is all weekly). On top of this you have to pay for fuel and other small expenses like car cleaning etc. Fuel alone is easily £100+.
Just to cover the costs i had to work for few days, on some weekdays i would take from as little as £60 to £150 if i got lucky, this is for working 6am-6pm, sometimes id stay longer if i had to. Then weekends come and this is where you make money for your own pocket. I worked 20hours on Fri and then Sat about 18hours, sleeping in the car every single time I was waiting for a job to come.
I almost never had any RL due to working always during weekends, all the spare time i had for myself was Sun afternoon.
All this so i could take home £500-700 home p/w for doing 80-90hours p/w. (Dont forget that you work as self employed so you get no benefits such as pay sick, pay holiday or anything at all). Basically if you get unlucky and get sick for weekends you end up taking home around £0.
Ah and dont forget all the drunk people you have to deal during weekends, luckily for me I barely had any non paying customers/troublemakers but s..t happens every day to some drivers.
I know it sounds like a lot to pay when you go to the airport and it costs £30-40 to get there but the truth is that you dont get jobs like this all the time, you still most of the time go empty back to the area that you cover. a lot of times you get customers that order a cab just so when you drive to their place and it takes you 10-20 minutes by the time you get there they change their mind or are gone already, it happened to me so many times it was just unbelievable.
Ah and the new regulations are just crazy, 2 mots per yer, special insurance that costs £2k to start with. £150 p/y for yellow badge etc, PVC (or whatever is calld) license £300 every 3 years, + medical test etc.
I was going crazy to be honest when i was doing this s..t but I preferred to earn living rather that getting into debt. I quit after 4 months as i started having high blood pressure at the age of 28 from doing this, luckily for me i was offered a job in IT few weeks later. I knew what i was getting into as I did this before few years ago for 1 year but that time i had my own car and could afford to work less hours but still my real life life was affected by it.
Hackney cabs/black cabs are a different story, as you have to study actually to get the license and in London is hard work to get one, without the extra costs that you have with mini cabs drivers probably can make a decent living but it seems like its slowly changing for them too.
Last time when i was made redundant i went back to mini cabbing temporarily just to make my living.
So i hired a car from a mini cab company, I had to pay them weekly rent of £150 + car rent £130 + xda rent £20 + insurance £50 (this is all weekly). On top of this you have to pay for fuel and other small expenses like car cleaning etc. Fuel alone is easily £100+.
Just to cover the costs i had to work for few days, on some weekdays i would take from as little as £60 to £150 if i got lucky, this is for working 6am-6pm, sometimes id stay longer if i had to. Then weekends come and this is where you make money for your own pocket. I worked 20hours on Fri and then Sat about 18hours, sleeping in the car every single time I was waiting for a job to come.
I almost never had any RL due to working always during weekends, all the spare time i had for myself was Sun afternoon.
All this so i could take home £500-700 home p/w for doing 80-90hours p/w. (Dont forget that you work as self employed so you get no benefits such as pay sick, pay holiday or anything at all). Basically if you get unlucky and get sick for weekends you end up taking home around £0.
Ah and dont forget all the drunk people you have to deal during weekends, luckily for me I barely had any non paying customers/troublemakers but s..t happens every day to some drivers.
I know it sounds like a lot to pay when you go to the airport and it costs £30-40 to get there but the truth is that you dont get jobs like this all the time, you still most of the time go empty back to the area that you cover. a lot of times you get customers that order a cab just so when you drive to their place and it takes you 10-20 minutes by the time you get there they change their mind or are gone already, it happened to me so many times it was just unbelievable.
Ah and the new regulations are just crazy, 2 mots per yer, special insurance that costs £2k to start with. £150 p/y for yellow badge etc, PVC (or whatever is calld) license £300 every 3 years, + medical test etc.
I was going crazy to be honest when i was doing this s..t but I preferred to earn living rather that getting into debt. I quit after 4 months as i started having high blood pressure at the age of 28 from doing this, luckily for me i was offered a job in IT few weeks later. I knew what i was getting into as I did this before few years ago for 1 year but that time i had my own car and could afford to work less hours but still my real life life was affected by it.
Hackney cabs/black cabs are a different story, as you have to study actually to get the license and in London is hard work to get one, without the extra costs that you have with mini cabs drivers probably can make a decent living but it seems like its slowly changing for them too.
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