Sunday 17 May 2009

How much does a taxi driver earn?

Hmm, how should I answer this one?? This is the question everybody wants answered.

How many times have you sat in a taxi and thought to yourself bloody hell this guy must be making a packet? £10 for 20 minutes work?
Well you would be right, but then most of day or night is spent sitting around waiting for the next job.
Some days a driver may have 5 or 6 jobs, so now do the maths.
Saturday nights can be good this lasts from 6pm til around 1am.

The main constraint on earnings is the shear volume of taxis on the road - hundreds of hackney carriages, over 600 cars with Dragon Taxis, over 250 cars with Premier Taxis, Capital Cabs, Cardiff Cabs etc..........

I have promised to be honest with my posts so I will tell you my earnings on Friday - £115.
Sounds quite good for a days work?
From this you must take your expenses - £15 fuel, £15 radio hire, £8.50 insurance.
And how long did I work? I started at 6.30am 'worked' through until 1pm, 1 hour for lunch, then back out until 1am. Yes 1am!! So for around 20 hours I earnt around £75 - £3.75 per hr! Tax to pay as well.

SO I hope this puts things in perspective. I also promise not to moan anymore about my earnings, but it is a case of survival rather than earning.

Welcome to my Cardiff Taxi blog

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to my new blog Cardiff Taxi.
Not really sure what I am going to write about here apart from my experiences taxi driving in and around Cardiff, UK.

I have been driving now for a few years and I intend on giving an insiders view on driving a taxi in Wales' largest city.

Feel free to send me your questions whether you are a driver, passenger or just interested in my posts!