
Fortune News | Jan 05,2020
January 9 , 2021
By Kidist Yidnekachew ( Kidist Yidnekachew has degrees in psychology and journalism and communications. She can be reached at kidyyidnekachew@gmail.com. )
Recently, a friend left his job, bought a car and registered to work for a taxi-hailing service provider. But the business was slow. Maybe the market was saturated. Or maybe people did not have the money to be driven around in a taxi cab because of the depressed economy. He did not know.
"A few years back, this would have been a successful business with fewer competitors,” he told me. “Those drivers who signed up first made a fortune, but now it's another story."
But he was determined to make money. Most of his friends, myself included, had a suspicion that he was living above his means, renting an apartment too spacious for a bachelor. He said that he also had debts to settle.
Thus, he began to drive at night, catering to people working evenings or partying late into the night. Most people belonged to the latter group. He worked all day, and then until 3am or 4am, sleeping for just about three hours.
A month later, he was unrecognisable. He had lost weight, gotten dark circles under his eyes for lack of adequate sleep and looked miserable. Family and friends were worried about him and managed to stage an intervention. Alas, before we were done, he received a call and had to head back to work. Every couple of hundred Birr counted for him.
It was not just the mental and physical exhaustion though. A few days after the intervention, he was robbed.
"The thieves didn't look like robbers. They were two men dressed nicely with nice hair,” he told me.
They had not used the app to get his service. They told him his destination, and as he was approaching it, they asked him to stop in a dark alley saying that they might have gotten the direction wrong. Exhausted and tired, he was not as alert as he needed to be.
The next thing he knows, a gun was pulled on him, and he was told to empty his pockets. He complied. Fortunately, another car approached, and they had to leave in a hurry. His phone, car and life were spared.
"You got lucky this time and should take this as a lesson. You have got to stop working at night, especially after midnight," the intervention continued.
His family was right. Most people have heard stories of drivers from taxi-hailing companies being harmed and even having their cars stolen. It is also the case that these drivers are seen to be encroaching in the livelihoods of the blue taxi cab services – sometimes they violently push against the taxi hailing drivers.
On several occasions, I have had drivers telling me to meet them across the street or further from where I am, because they are afraid they will be spotted by the blue taxi drivers, which usually huddle together.
It is fascinating how the tables have turned in just a short period. Just years back, it used to be passengers that were uneasy and suspicious of drivers as they could steal from them or even harm them. Of course, there are still drivers who work as taxi-hailing service drivers to rob passengers.
It is encouraging that the drivers have begun to push back. My driver friend and his colleagues from the taxi-hailing service came together to create a Telegram channel. They started tracking the whereabouts of their fellow drivers and communicating with them. If one of them took longer than expected, the others check on them. Also, after midnight, they only take calls from female customers.
These are not full-proof solutions, but they believe it would help. It shows that there is a price to everything, and we rarely notice as beneficiaries of that service.
As passengers, we often enter a taxi cab, perhaps chat with the driver a bit, and alight without so much as a thought. We like the convenience of a cab coming nearly wherever we are in the city and the lack of haggling for price. We overlook the real price that has to be paid by the strangers who take us where we want to be.
PUBLISHED ON
Jan 09,2021 [ VOL
21 , NO
1080]
Fortune News | Jan 05,2020
Radar | Mar 28,2020
Fortune News | Apr 04,2020
Radar | Feb 01,2020
Radar | Apr 20,2019
Fortune News | Jun 14,2020
Commentaries | May 23,2020
Radar | Jun 22,2019
Agenda | Nov 27,2018
Fortune News | Jan 26,2019
Fortune News | 33135 Views | Jul 18,2020
Fortune News | 15626 Views | Oct 12,2019
Fortune News | 14590 Views | Mar 19,2020
Agenda | 14120 Views | Mar 16,2019
January 16 , 2021
It was a sunny day on September 12, 1974. A machine gun mounted on top of a tank was...
January 3 , 2021 . By ABDUREZAK LESMAN
Women wearing netela, a white cotton garment with woven coloured borders, and men in...
December 26 , 2020 . By MAYA MISIKIR
Black and white markings on their legs and large semi-circular rimmed horns that stre...
December 12 , 2020
Dietrich Rogge, founder and CEO of Rockstone, a German-based real estate developer an...
January 16 , 2021
It was a sunny day on September 12, 1974. A machine gun mounted on top of a tank was...
January 9 , 2021
There is something curious about elections that have been conducted in Ethiopia since...
January 2 , 2021
One by one, Workneh Gebeyehu (PhD), executive secretary of the Intergovernmental Auth...
December 26 , 2020
It is refreshing to see a publicised high-level government meeting become somewhat co...
January 16 , 2021 . By MAYA MISIKIR
Bags of cement are stacked up high in Megenagna, one of the more famous retailing areas in Addis Abeba. But the closed warehouses in the pho...
January 16 , 2021 . By MAYA MISIKIR
The federal agency in charge of education quality assurance has begun reviewing the quality of all 51 pub...
January 16 , 2021 . By MAYA MISIKIR
The Ministry of Education has cancelled the contract it gave to five plants at industrial parks to supply...
January 16 , 2021 . By FASIKA TADESSE
A dispute between MIDROC Foundation Specialist and a former employee and shareholder continues even after...
Put your comments here