A couple of months ago, early in the morning, I had the absurd idea of calling radio taxi Arrecife to take my almost nonagenarian father and me to the airport to attend a family baptism in La Palma. You know, the kind of flight that logically has a layover and is the only one you can take all day to arrive on time for the baptism that was celebrated in the morning.
No problem, they told me, my taxi would arrive soon. 10 minutes later and after seeing several free taxis pass in front of me, I began to despair and worry about missing my flight. When I called radio taxi again, the same lady answered me with the same bored and bad-tempered voice to tell me that my taxi would arrive. And I kept seeing more and more taxis with the green light passing in front of me and ignoring me. Finally, my taxi never arrived, but one of those free taxis took pity on us and picked us up. Later I would find out that picking us up had been a small act of rebellion against the system by that taxi driver.
After asking the taxi driver several times why I had called radio taxi, but none of the taxis that passed by picked me up, this good man finally stopped biting his tongue and exclaimed: -“I'm going to tell you because it's something that enrages me, it turns out that the lady who answers radio taxi gives airport trips to a relative of hers and not to the closest taxi drivers”. ¡Boom!, I was silent, finally the world made sense.
Last week I was going to take my mother to San Bartolomé. It turns out that she is in a wheelchair because a year ago she fell off the escalator of the Biosfera. She didn't die by a miracle, but she can no longer walk. When I pulled the car to the curb to be able to put her in without many difficulties for her, my tire blew. Things that happen. As I was very close to the workshop, I took the car there and then I would call a taxi to return to my office. When calling the infamous radio taxi service, the answering machine would jump, telling you, again and again, that all the lines were busy and they would hang up on you. Look, there are telephone answering systems that tell you that you are in position X in the queue and that on average your call will take X time to be answered. But not there, they are simply busy and you better leave.
Of course, the reason why there was no taxi in Arrecife is that there were a couple of cruise ships docked and the taxi drivers decide those days to attend to the tourists, leaving the citizens of Arrecife stranded in their tasks. I walked back without further problems, but thinking that something was working very badly in the taxi.
That same afternoon, as I was still without a car, I went to a stop to take a taxi to pick up my children from school. And I had a good conversation with the taxi driver, a very kind man. We were talking about what happened with the taxi on cruise days and at one point I asked him what he thought was the solution to such a problem. What he told me I will never forget: “What needs to be done is for the tour operators to coordinate so that only one ship comes a day and not two or three”. I was silent, I couldn't believe it.
It turns out that the solution of this good man in no way, under no possibility, can happen because there is some modification in the taxi sector, but everything else has to adapt to his world.
I don't blame him, when you live in a sector where you essentially have a guaranteed monopoly on “private” transport, you come to think that the world works like this and that everything else has to be regulated in the same way: putting doors to the countryside, regulating the operation of everything as if you were in a communist system and, why not? making the Sun revolve around the Earth. ¡And he was so calm!
No taxi driver friends. Of course you do a fundamental job for society, but this absurd monopoly that you enjoy is what is causing corruption and degeneration in taking radio taxi calls, which is what is causing most taxis to look bad, which is what makes there is no mobile application that allows a fairer allocation of shifts and which, in short, is leaving the citizens of this city stranded when they need it most: when they leave hospitals or supermarkets. And by the way, it is the same reason why they leave all the tourists who arrive at the airport stranded and have to make absurd queues because San Bartolomé does not have enough taxis to serve everyone.
There is never a magic formula and each economic sector requires a particular evaluation, but in view of the disastrous results it is clear that it is absurd that the taxi sector in Lanzarote is not fully liberalized and the forces of the market fully come into play, with which to more wisely balance the marked step that exists between supply and demand, both quantitatively and qualitatively.
If there is any authority with capacity on the island or in the Canary Islands, I encourage you to break this monopoly and cancel all current licenses and move to an open license system, where meeting some logical requirements any person and vehicle can dedicate themselves to passenger transport.
I know that the taxi drivers don't like this, but what must be attended to is the general interest and not that of a few and their pockets. Also, either they get their act together now, or in 10 years the 100% autonomous driverless “private” transport vehicles will steal all the work. Because everyone will realize that it is better to travel in a car without a driver and with a good mobile application, than with the corrupt, outdated and absurd current system.
The taxi needs to recognize that it is the Earth that revolves around the Sun and not the other way around. Time is running out. Tic, tac.
