Taxi Drivers Direct

ABOUT US:

From The Founder's Desk.

I have driven a Taxi Cab here in the Seattle/King County region for 15 years or more.

So I’ve had a chance to hear many taxi passengers complaints and or complements (which were very few!) on what’s wrong with the Taxi industry over the years. I feel most governmental officials feel the way to improve taxi services is to keep passing more and more legislation or issue more taxi license plates and that will somehow magically solve the ills of our industry.

I have attended many meetings on behalf of taxi drivers here along with a few staunch colleagues of mines voicing the views of taxi drivers in front of city and county taxi officials over the years and finally realized to improve Taxi Services, we have to try a different approach.

I personally tested a Independent Taxi Drivers Dispatch Service in June of 2007 which was a success. The general public was delighted with a new way they could use or call to get a taxi. But then Drivers began to ask questions of me, like where is the customer going, in other words wanted to start and pick and choose the passengers they wanted to serve.

Considering that all Seattle-King County Taxi/For-Hire Drivers are “Independent Contractors" per Seattle Municipal Code, (SMC) 6.310.110(M); My goal was to help the taxi drivers increase their daily earning potentials without questions and improve Taxi Services by giving the public a choice or another alternative when they were trying to get a taxi cab .

The biggest complaints I heard most of the time from passengers when I was driving was: (1) The Taxi Driver didn’t speak the “English” language very well, (2) The Taxi Driver didn’t know where they were going and (3) How they were treated by some Taxi companies dispatcher/call taker personnel when they requested a taxi cab, etc.

Hearing this over and over again, I finally realized I have a solution to improve taxi services by thinking outside the box! I shared my idea with a few of my fellow drivers who thought my plan might work, but weren't sure if we could really pull it off.

I notice that just about every profession, example: Doctors, Attorneys, Dentist, Pipe-fitters, Plumbers, Roofers, Carpenters, Landscapers, Real Estate Appraisers, Teachers, Bricklayers, Electricians, Veterinarians, Auto Mechanics, Musicians, Truckers, Accountants, etc; all had some kind of a exclusive directory of some sort that the general public could choose one of their colleagues from. But I had never seen one for Taxi Drivers. So, that's how Taxi Drivers Direct Dot Com came into being!

I no longer drive a taxi. But my colleagues I consult with on a regular basis are still driving, so I will not say much about them because they fear that some taxi dispatch services may terminate their services if they found out about their involvement with this project.

As I told my colleagues, it’s like handing someone your business card telling them about your services you can offer them. You’re not just limited to the Taxi Dispatch services to tell people you’re available for service and the “Internet” is going to make that possible. And besides, I said to them, If the taxi associations/companies can have a website telling the world about their services they offer, why can’t "Taxi Drivers" have their own web site doing the same?

We leave you with this thought: It's been said if you keep doing the same thing the same way all the time you will probably get the same results. We say, if you really want to see a change, you might have to do something differently.

Sincerely,

Terry Davis,
Founder & CEO

I really want to hear from you! E-mail me personally at: ceotdd@xspmail.com

Write to me at: Taxi Drivers Direct.Com, P.O. Box 18693, Seattle, Washington 98118.

A special thanks to: C. Daye.