Denver’s cab drivers are grumbling in the wake of the big snows, saying the storms cost them a significant percentage of their take-home pay.
With annual earnings of about $15,000, they say, the average $1,000 lost to the storms in down time, cab lease and contract fees, and a weakened New Year’s Eve market, will force cabbies to cram in an extra work week or two in 2007 to come out even.
The impact is so severe, two of Denver’s three taxi companies are waiving lease fees for a day or two of the lost time.
The third company – Freedom Cab – could not be reached for comment.
“If you talk to the drivers, they will cry,” Mohamed Aitmbarek said.
Regulations governing drive time limit cabbies to an average six-day week.
Most Denver storms take only a day or two to get over, so cab companies figure the independent contractors who lease from them will make up the lost time on their one free day a week.
But drivers like Aitmbarek were stalled as much as three or four days.
That meant revenue losses averaging $200 for each week day lost, $300 and $400 for each weekend day, plus lease bills of as much as $120 a day.
“I think drivers lost a lot of money,” said Abdi Buni, a cabbie for Metro Taxi and president of Denver ProTaxi, an association of 350 drivers.
Buni said Metro was waiving a day of lease and contract fees because of the storms’ impact.
Aitmbarek, who also drives for Metro, called that insufficient.
“They charge us anyway,” he said. “They don’t care about us.”
Calls seeking comment from Metro officials weren’t returned Tuesday.
Yellow Cab also is working on a program to waive fees for one or two days, said Brad Whittle, the president of Colorado Cab Co., which owns Yellow Cab in Denver.
“We’re doing all we can to help our drivers,” Whittle said, adding that the company expects to lose more than $50,000 due to overtime, hotel rooms for dispatchers and lost fees.
Buni said drivers from Freedom Cab hadn’t heard whether they would receive credits. A message seeking comment from Freedom officials wasn’t returned.
Nationally, there is no standard concerning how taxi companies handle serious storms and natural disasters, said Alfred LaGasse, executive vice president for the Taxicab, Limousine & Paratransit Association, an industry organization.
“It’d be a company-by-company policy,” LaGasse said. “Actually, this is the first time I’ve been asked” about the issue.
For Yossef Boudjelti, a driver for Yellow Cab, Denver’s snows warrant a clearer policy.
“We need something different in this city,” Boudjelti said.
“You have to be a very good driver to make it.”
Staff writer Chuck Plunkett can be reached at 303-954-1333 or cplunkett@denverpost.com.
