Commuters stranded by cabbies across capital

With the heavy snow and cold weather, taking a taxi was a headache for commuters yesterday as the most experienced drivers in the city kept off the icy roads.

Chen Xibin, a driver with the Beiqi Taxi Group, usually finishes his day at 9 pm. Yesterday however he decided to end earlier at 4:40 pm.

"There are many customers on the streets but I won't pick them up because I don't want a car accident," Chen said.

He described the situation as if "every pedestrian is waving at a taxi."

Chen, who has been in the business for 10 years, estimated that about a half of his colleagues didn't venture out yesterday.

Although the city has a taxi fleet of 67,000 cars, the airport was in shortage of taxis yesterday with thousands of passengers stranded. Usually, there are hundreds of taxis idle at the airport, waiting to pick up customers.

At the Beijing Railway Station, more than 200 passengers asked for taxis at noon, a manager at the call center of Tiancheng Taxi company surnamed Hu said, adding that his company could not handle the large quantity of requests.

Sun Jiangang, a driver from the private Crescent Taxi Company, also chose not to do business yesterday after an accident.

"I had to pay for the accident out of my own pocket despite the bad weather," Sun said.

Sun's taxi slipped and knocked into the road barrier the night before, just shortly after it began to snow.

"I have to fix the taxi today. It is too dangerous to drive on such slippery roads so I choose to stay at home today."

Sun estimated that on such a snowy day, his vehicle's average speed only hit 20 to 30 km per hour. On normal days he could drive 80 km on the second and third ring roads. He believed this will make it hard to get enough customers to turn a profit.

"Usually I can pick up 20 to 30 customers every day during my working hours from 10 am to 11 pm," Sun told METRO.

"In bad weather, I tend to work less because it is difficult to get moving," he said.

An employee surnamed Jin from the Jinglian Taxi company said drivers of the company are allowed to decide if they work in bad weather or not. Drivers are also allowed to choose where they work.

"I didn't plan to work today but my friend suggested I should," said a driver who declined to be named.

"I went to work near Wudaokou, because long-distance journeys increase the chance of getting into an accident. Additionally, I don't have a license."

The unlicensed driver said he has started asking customers about their intended journey before letting them in. "I only drive on the roads which has applied the snow-melting agent," he said.

However, the driver admitted that he earned more money than normal yesterday. "Until 3:30 pm, I had made more than 100 yuan just by going around Wudaokou."

(China Daily 01/04/2010 page14)