OK. I don't normally call or need a taxi. Until today. What a disaster!
Car breaks down. I get it towed. I'd like to get to work, so I try to get a taxi from home (not too far from the shop). Apparently, since I live in the "north county" of San Diego, I get a yellow pages that serves only the areas near me. Unfortunately, most of those areas as in Oceanside and surrounding areas (which is a different county).
Apparently also, some dipstick passed a law at some point that prevents taxi services from crossing county lines. Why? Don't know. I'm sure I could find a way to blame liberal nutjobs on it, but I'm too tired to bother at this point. As I go down the list of taxi services in the area, I avoid the ones with the 760 area code, since that's Oceanside. And after spending over an hour running through the rest, not a single service would actually pick up in the area I live in!
So I try information. Surely, they'll be able to put me through to a cab company that'll manage my area, right? Nope. They keep handing me numbers that are either 760 numbers, or ones I've already tried. Sigh. Eventually, I just gave up. Working from home I guess...
Here's what I don't get. I remember back in the day when you could literally walk up to any phone booth, flip through the book there, put in your coin(s) and get a taxi to come get you, day or night, anywhere, and take you to anywhere. What's changed? You'd think these guys would be in competition and would work hard to get your fare or something. What's even more surprising is the attitudes I got. Most of them were actually rude about the fact that they wouldn't pick me up. No: "Sorry. We can't pick up there, but I could give you the number of a company that can...". Just a half intelligible "No cabs for you!" and a hang up.
Is it that we have too much regulation on these businesses, so they can only operate in very narrow economic range (and apparently picking someone up in the burbs isn't cost effective or something)? Or is it that there's not enough of them, so they don't feel they need to compete for our dollars? Dunno. Just dont get it. I was willing to pay for the trip, but no one wanted my money. That just seems wrong to me...