EUROPIAN UNION    Finland

        Taxi Driver

                  5.3.2006     Finland bus drivers like a book of matches, they always on strike by phil

The bus drivers are on strike again, (well, most of them are) they were on strike just a few months ago. Thank Christ the bus system in Finland is semi-privatized or else all of them would be on strike…or possibly none of them. Juhani Salonius has been sent in mediate the negiotations of grumpy old wealthy white men - you’ll remember Salonius last year was the mediator for the month long paper industry strike - somehow he was invited back to screw up yet another labor agreement.

The next time some hippie gives you shit for owning a car, or thinking of owning a car - remind them of these bus strikes. Fortunately I have a car, and so do most other middle class Finns, and wealthy Finns have three cars. It’s Finland’s ever-growing poor who are truly hurt by this strike, they can’t afford an automobile.

There’s not enough taxi’s in Helsinki and tomorrow it’ll be next to impossible to find one. I remember when I visited St. Petersburg, there were tons of these private mini-buses scooting around the city. Plenty of public transportation available, little (private?) white vans go where buses and trams don’t go, and anyone with an automobile could be a private taxi.And people had the freedom to flag down cars and pay the drivers to take them places if they were heading in the same direction - that certainly saves on gas! 

My hometown of Baltimore was full of “hacks” - these were private citizens who used their car as a taxi. Vist a city supermarket, you’d see well-dressed men waiting outside the store offering to take women home in their Cadillacs (get a hack on a Friday night and it’s probably a rusted out Honda). You negotiated a price before you got in, they were great, much cheaper than a taxi, and never once did I read about a hack doing something bad. Of course, hacks were completely illegal, but the police had more important things to worry about.

Residents of Finland could really benefit from these liberalizations in transport policy.

30.11.2005                                      Less Mercedes taxis        by Phil

When I first moved to Finland in 2002, I was amazed at all the Mercedes taxis on the streets - it seemed as if every taxi was a new Mercedes. This is in contrast to my home country where virtually every taxi is a old, rusted-out yellow American-made automobile. After I took my first taxi ride from Helsinki to Espoo and paid the bill, I quickly realized how they afforded these nice cars.

But lately, I’ve seen a lot more Toyotas, VWs, and (gasp) Renaults. Is it just my imagination, or are there less Mercedes taxis on Finnish roads nowadays?