Visually impaired Kaitlyn Kerr and Deacon Jones don’t have the same ease travelling around that other people do.
And now, they’re speaking out about the difficulties they have faced trying to take cabs in Metro Vancouver.
Coverage of Uber on Globalnews.ca/bc:
“It’s gotten to a point where it’s a coin flip,” Jones said. “Am I going to have a good experience or a bad one?”
Kerr recounted to Global News an incident where a cab driver called her and cussed her out.
She once walked out to where two cabs were waiting. She approached one of the vehicles, asked whether the driver had called out for her, and assumed it was hers.
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Then, she received a phone call from a driver who said he was waiting for her when she hopped into a different cab.
The driver said: “‘What the bleep is your problem,'” Kerr recounted. “And I was really surprised because that’s really unprofessional and rude.”
Kerr said other cabs have “just either not shown up or said that they’ve picked me up but didn’t.
“I’ve had cabs that have taken me all across Richmond when I didn’t need to go that way,” she added.
Jones, meanwhile, talked about how he doesn’t carry cash and makes payments using debit instead.
Some cab drivers don’t like that, according to Jones — one, he said, even directed him to go to an ATM just because he didn’t want to take his card.
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Kerr and Jones stressed that this isn’t true of all cab drivers — Jones has met cabbies who have given him extra assistance and ensured he had been dropped off at the correct location.
But Kerr said it would help if cab drivers were more accountable.
Another solution? Bring Uber to town, because drivers are subject to customer ratings, Kerr said.
“I would love Uber in Vancouver,” she said.
“I don’t think it should necessarily take away from the taxis, but I think it should be another option.”
Cab drivers in Vancouver undergo mandatory accessibility training, and she said that makes a difference.
“We need to make sure that people who are vulnerable feel that they are getting good service, feel safe and feel that they can trust that service,” said Vancouver Coun. Melissa De Genova.
Passengers can also report bad service to the Vancouver Taxi Association.
But complaints like this have dropped since the introduction of a Taxi Bill of Rights in B.C. about a decade ago, according to John Mulka, Western Canada regional president with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB).
“It’s educated not only the drivers but also anybody who may be trying to access a taxi cab and I think it’s raised awareness in the general public,” Mulka said.