Alice Coster: Melbourne’s taxi service needs to clean-up its act

Victoria’s cab prices used to be fair but the deregulation of the industry has created “taxi warfare”.

Melbourne’s taxi service needs to clean-up its act, Alice Coster says. Picture: Tony Gough

CATCHING cabs around the city in Melbourne has become the stuff of nightmares.

There was a definite whiff of a ripoff during the Australian Open (and we’re not just talking about the pong in the back seat) when cab drivers were gouging flat rates of $100-fare a pop.

Now, when there’s nothing special on, the cabbie screams when questioned about his eye-bleeding $85 fare:

“Flat rate. Flat rate according to rules.”

“Whose rules?” My eyes dart around, looking for a meter.

“My rule. Flat rate my rule.”

It’s taxi warfare out there and the scared and baffled casualties are the customers.

Price haggling on the mean streets of Melbourne, when you are trying to get a ride home on a Saturday night, was not always open combat.

It got this way thanks to ludicrous deregulation rules passed in Victoria in 2018 to clean-up the industry and make prices more “fair”.

Fair suck of the sauce bottle more like it.

As a long-time cab user the metered fare was, well, fair.

As a passenger, especially being female, you knew there was some sort of official record to the transaction taking place. It had a certain safety-net feel.

This was certainly not the case after a hailing a cab from the MCG after the Dreamtime match on Saturday night where Essendon pipped Richmond by a point.

Walking over the footbridge at Jolimont Station where Darth Vadar had been busking to a jubilant throng and a bearded man was yelling, “Up the effing Dons” at the top of his lungs.

Melbourne was back baby.

It was only after hailing a hovering cab with a vacant roof top sign and travelling a good 250m down Wellington Parade, that the $85 flat-rate fight to Elwood ensued.

Price gouging, or flat-out refusal to take a ride that isn’t all the way out to Tullamarine has become dangerous.

How are people meant to be able to get home, let alone afford it. Hailing a cab and getting out of dodge was once a lifeline for young women out on the tiles.

Now it’s a life sentence. So much for the most liveable city. Melbourne’s taxi service needs to clean-up its act.