Welcome To Cypress Point Park

There is a nice little beach park on the extreme west end of Cypress Boulevard in Tampa. There is actually a beach with sand dunes. Those things you don't often see in Florida.

I was dropping off a fare at the office center near Reno and Cypress, and pulled in here to take a little nap. It was very quit and peaceful and I really don't know if I had ever been here before.

After a little nap, I even took a walk on the beach. I did notice some guys out fishing. The beach is not in the best of shape, but there is an awesome view of Tampa Bay. Bring a towel or blanket for the beach does have sea weed on it. The park is on the direct flight line to Tampa International Airport and they will fly overhead by only a few hundred feet.

Tampa man Charged With Stealing Taxi

A Tampa man has been charged with stealing a taxi cab and crashing it.
Police say the taxi driver was handling a customer's luggage early Saturday morning when Olyn Newsome pushed the driver aside and got in. He then fled.
Officers spotted the car that night and chased Newsom until he crashed into a yard.
Newsome was charged with carjacking, aggravated fleeing to elude and resisting arrest without violence.

We just had another cab stolen this morning, it was United Cab #378. Have you seen it? Good Lord gangsters....a cab is marked with a cab and phone number. You really should find other targets.

Gypsy Cabs Ruining This Business In Tampa

My taxi blogger friend in San Francisco believes that unlicensed gypsy cabs are a real threat to his business and the general public. He is right.
In San Francisco they have a real problem with former cab drivers driving unlicensed cabs with no medallion. They are usually guys that have been fired from all the real cab companies and still want to drive cab. They are basically losers, and the lowest form of life on Earth. All of the bad cab stories you have ever heard were probably from what the "gypsy cab" did to them, and this is reflected onto all "real" cab drivers. The tragedy is that in Tampa, John Cox, the Commissioner of the Hillsborough County Public Transportation Commission is allowing "gypsy" type cabs to flourish.
What he has done is allow more permits to drive cab than the market can bear. He knows that there are enough losers who will scarf up those permits because they are incapable of doing anything else for living other than being a janitor, landscaper, construction worker, or the "Clorox" guy at a local XXX rated porn shop. I guess they figure hacking is better than cleaning up after some perv for $6.75 an hour, so they drive cab. They have been fired from both Yellow and United but they just continue to exist and want to drive like the scumbag in the photo above who has no medallion or is he licensed in the correct county or any county.
Since these guys do not serve the general public, the hang out at the downtown hotels, cruise ship and late night bars. They are what is wrong with the business. It is John Cox that has allowed this to continue. It seems Cox is only interested in weather a cab needs a car wash or not. I don't mean to be blunt, but I am one of the last white, English speaking cab drivers left in the profession.

More Cabs And Vans Killing This Business

On the back lot at United Cab you can see the overflow of the Bay Shuttle vans that take people to Tampa International Airport and also pick up at the Airport to points unknown. That is a direct threat to our business. Don't get me wrong, I believe in free market capitalism but Bay Shuttle is owned by United Cab. What do they care?

As long as the cab drivers pay the lease every week, day or shift($25,000 a year) they are doing just fine. The only thing that happens is I have to work harder and longer to make the same amount of money that I have been used to. Even these efforts no a days don't really help. I know what you are thinking, get another job. But I sort of feel like the bank robber character played by Robert Dinero in the movie HEAT. He said "I have been doing this for so long, I don't know if I could do anything else." After 12 years it becomes a part of you. It is your daily routine. I give order and stability to your life. Like any addict, it would be hard to just walk away.

In Tampa just today I saw AFFORDABLE TAXI, ADDIS TAXI, AMERICAB, ABC TAXI, A-1 CAB, OLDSMAR TAXI, NORTHWEST ZONE TAXI. Does Tampa really need all of these taxi companies. They must all be a bunch of paupers. There is not enough business out there to support what is going on. I guess these idiots are willing to work 16 hours a day 7 days a week. Just today in the business office I saw to immigrants filling out the forms to become new drivers. One of the guys said he used to drive in Boston where you have to own the medallion...it cost $750,000! That sounds insane. You cannot earn that driving a cab. Do I sound burned out?

Tampa International Airport

This was the view today form the new holding area at Tampa International Airport. What the authority has done is move us over to the quad areas. They believed that the cabs were the cause of the traffic tie ups in the terminal. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is because in Tampa Florida we now do 5 times the volume of traffic since the airport was built in the early 1970's. I guess they needed someone to blame all of this on.

Anyway, I did not have to wait long today and caught about 4 rides in 2 hours. They did not go far, but tipped well and it was well worth my effort. With things getting cold up north I need to incorporate the airport more into my daily activities. I did take this guy about my age who had meet this chick on the internet and they were like video caming for the last year and he was now in town to get laid I guess. I wonder why he went to a high end hotel. Love modern style.

Taxi Taxi Public Acess TV

I found this on You Tube. It seems there is a Public access TV show called TAXI TAXI and one of the stars is Yellow cab driver Nana. In this video he tells why he is a cab driver because the only job he can get in America is dishwasher and driving a taxi gives him a sense of accomplishment.