Taxi Driving in Moscow and Istanbul

Pirate Taxi Business:

I was intrigued by a news story a while ago. A pirate taxi driver in Istanbul was caught by the police. If I remember correctly, the incident happened as follows: The police somehow noticed the pirate taxi driver and started to follow him. Realizing that he was being followed, the driver forced the customer to leave on the corner of a street, but the police took the customer who got out of the vehicle into their own vehicle and convinced him that the pirate taxi driver was a dangerous person by scaring him a little. The lady had to admit that she had taken a taxi and did not know the driver. After all, it was written in the news how much penalty they imposed on the pirate taxi driver, I don't remember now, but the news was interesting.

It wasn't very long, maybe five years, maybe a little more, once in Moscow, if you were going somewhere, you just had to raise your hand on the side of the road. He would be a taxi driver who wanted to. Not professionally, but as an amateur. If you raised your hand, any car would stop and open the window and ask where were you going? You would say, if it suits the owner, if you can agree on your place to go and negotiate your wages, you will jump into the car, it will take you to your destination. Usually they would look at the watches on their arm first, see if they could drop you off at your destination and catch up with their destination. Now there is almost no longer a wristwatch user.

The Difference between the Old and the New in Directions:

If the place you want to go is a wrong place for him, or if the fee you propose is too low for him, they would either say directly no, it's not on my way, or they would risk delaying their destination and ask for a slightly higher fee. If you agreed, they would risk being late for work or home and take you where you wanted. Some would accept it immediately without even negotiating if the place you wanted was on the road just to get the daily gasoline money.

Everyone knew Moscow like the back of their hand. It wasn't like it is now, there was no navigator or direction, there was no "Google map" or "Yandex card". They knew every street by heart.

Moscow is actually an easy city in terms of orientation as it has developed according to metro exits as a city settlement, even if you do not know exactly the street you are going to, with the name of the nearest metro, everyone can more or less understand what the address is around. Even if he didn't know, they would say from the beginning that you would get in the car first, and after the subway you would describe your destination.

There would be a small number of taxis that we officially knew of that time, their color would not be yellow, but they would have checkered bandages on the sides. Of course, their fares would be considerably higher than usual, and since their number is very small, you would not come across these taxis so often. I've come across it once or twice, and they have old-style taximeters, like those old-style water meters, whose numbers work by spinning, but they never turned them on. If you were in a hurry and you were in a certain place, and if this taxi came across, you would have to pay a high fare and get on. In fact, if I remember correctly, one of them accepted my fee.

Mercedes Volga Cars of Russia:

Once, an official vehicle stopped, a black Volga with a jackal on it. Cars of this brand were once considered the Mercedes of Russia. They were the most used vehicles by the managers in official offices, the black Volga, the legendary car. The engines of the very old models were designed for the cold climate, the new ones were normal, but the engine speeds of the old ones were very low, and at idle there would usually be the sound of the engine ticking in our bedrooms like the old clocks we used to set up every evening to wake up in the morning. I don't know whose driver it was that day, like everyone else, that official vehicle had stopped, like a normal vehicle, I was very surprised, but the driver opened the window and asked where. I told him with puzzled looks where I was going, the classic gesture like all of them, first he looked at his watch, then he said the wage he wanted, he wanted a standard wage. I said okay in a confused way, I didn't even negotiate, I jumped in next to him.

In Moscow, there were no barriers between the commuting routes in the large shosees at that time, and now there are no barriers on some roads. Between the two directions there would be an additional lane with a straight road line on both sides, usually used by ambulances or official vehicles, wide enough for only one vehicle to pass, normal vehicles cannot use this lane, it is forbidden. If you try to be vigilant, you will surely see a police car passing by or somewhere in the future and you will surely stop and then try. Usually you can only get away with what you have in your pocket and what you don't have. So no one has the eye to take risks, even if there is heavy traffic, this lane will be empty.

Traffic Density:

Anyone who knows what kind of traffic density there will be in Moscow on the evening knows that the roads are very wide, but since they still insist on the light system, the traffic is very heavy, especially in the mornings and evenings. Also, if you are caught in a red light, that red light will no longer leave your collar, you will have to stop at every intersection. If the driver is a talkative person, the time passes quickly, but if he is a thirsty person, the blacks will tie, the time will never pass, and in the evening, if there is work fatigue, just reaching home is heavier than the tiredness of the whole day.

It usually took me an hour and a half to go home. We entered that middle lane with the official vehicle I was riding in, the driver turned on the flash, neither the red light nor the traffic intensity, and that day we reached home in 15-20 minutes. It was my lucky day. In the following days, my eyes were always looking for a car with a jackknife, but it never came across again.

In the evening traffic, usually in Moscow, all ambulances are on the way. It is not possible to know which one really carries a patient, or tries to catch up with a patient, and which one drops the doctors home. I used to read a news report that somewhere an ambulance driver had written a fine to someone, according to the news that the pirate was a taxi driver.

Today, as in those old days, everything you want does not stop on the road. There is no longer a need. There are a lot of taxi companies, dozens of companies from Uber to Yandex taxis. They have all set a standard of their own, usually in standard yellow taxi colors, even plate numbers are of a certain standard, not mandatory, but many companies with T plates. From the phone, over the internet, you write and call the place you will get on your application and the place you are going to, you learn the route of the road, the travel time minute by minute, the brand of the vehicle, the license plate number, the name of the driver and how many minutes later you will be at your door, usually they come to your door in 3-5 minutes. The fees are not very high, they are all different, but if you want a luxury brand vehicle, it is more expensive, if the vehicle is standard, it is cheaper, if it is not a famous company, it is even cheaper than you call, sometimes even if it belongs to a good company, you wait five or ten minutes longer, you pay more economical fees. Completely free market. There are also price comparative phone applications that show all the companies, you can choose which company is suitable for you and go to the place you want just in time.

Convenience Provided to Those Who Drive Taxi Operators with Their Own Car:

I looked at it on the Internet, in fact, pirate taxi driving was forbidden in the past, but if the buyer is satisfied with the satisfying seller, how are you going to prove it, so they are turning a blind eye. Today, it is not easy to prove that piracy is being done. Even if you detect it while paying the customer the fee, it is not easy, and it is not even possible to prove pirate taxi unless there is anyone who admits that it is not familiar. What if the person you are filming says that the driver is my acquaintance, that I have no money left in my pocket, so I took it out and gave some money, what are you going to do? Are you going to threaten people like our cops, intimidate them, lie and deceive and persuade the customer mixed with fear to confess?

Do you know how the Russians solved the problem? First of all, they have provided great convenience to those who want to make a taxi truck profession with their own car.  If you still want to work with your own car today, it is possible. There's not much you have to do. First you open an ordinary company in your own name, the name of the company is your name, that is, the fees for opening a personal company are very cheap, anyone can open it by paying a simple transaction and paperwork fee at the tax office, the tax is paid by filing the method, everyone already has a tax number, the processing time is very short. Other than that, the rules are not too difficult. You need to be a driver with at least five years of experience and apply to the traffic office with a petition and get a taxi license for a small fee. They give it to anyone who wants it. That's all, it's that easy. Some people also buy a taxi sign with magnetic sticking lights to make it cool. Those who have made taxi business a profession put it on their cars if they are waiting for customers in a corner. The customer finds the sign and immediately removes the sign. Now there are very few customers waiting on the sidelines, they have signed up with a license to one of the phone applications that are all in use in the market, the customer on the internet is already finding them.

Phone applications charge a certain amount of service fee on the fee you receive, but they give you a customer guarantee that it both comes to your business and whoever owns the application makes money. It also benefits customers, because they can optionally pay for it by credit card, whether in cash or online.

If you want, you can take it if anyone raises your hand on the road, you can negotiate the fee you want as before and work in this way, there is no prohibition by law, you have a license anyway. If you have a license, you have no risk left, so the customer you take from the road does not need to go out to you in standard traffic police checks, you can show your license and continue on your way by saying that you are clearly working. The tax office is also satisfied, so that many of the employees can easily check their tax returns because they work through the phone application. A complete win-win situation, every stakeholder is profitable. There are no losers.

Of course, in addition to making it easier to get a license and tax, they have raised the penalties excessively for those who take a risk and say that I will still work as a pirate. If the customer you receive says to the police, yes, I rode as a customer, there is no limit to the penalty you will pay. The penalties for tax evaders are also very high. That's why no one is stopping on the road and being a pirate taxi driver like they used to.

Flexible approaches to taxi driving can be taken in authoritarian Russia:

Here is the taxi order in Russia, which has become known as an authoritarian country. No one has a complaint, the person who wants to pay 3-5 times the standard fare and calls for a VIP taxi, and the one who wants to pay the standard fare and uses a normal taxi. They have remedies even for those who want to pay below the standard. You don't call the famous company taxi, it's over.

In fact, I don't use any taxis if I don't have to. Even transportation by taxi is not faster than the Moscow metro. I described the subway in an article before. If I'm in a hurry and my destination is a little far from the metro exit, the best bet is that I take the subway to the nearest metro exit and then take a taxi to my destination. But I usually prefer public transport, I mostly walk the distance to my destination, walking is also beneficial to health.

I even drive the car from house to house, from dacha to house. And sometimes it's just up to the grocery store, and if the lady says let's buy something heavy from the grocery store like soil for flowers or something, we drive to the grocery store just to avoid carrying all that weight home by hand. There are a few grocery stores around the house and none of them are too far away, so we usually prefer to walk two steps for shopping.

I am really confusing how many these rejection votes were in Istanbul. I think it was the 13th or the 14th, and every time the government and taxi owners reject the municipality's proposal. Both sides have put the matter firmly in the crosshairs. One did not get tired of proposing the same offer, and the other of refusing. The people are suffering, Istanbul is full of pirate taxis, taxi drivers and the government do not care. Also, some of my friends are telling me to come to Turkey now, what should I do, should I suffer in Istanbul, gasoline has already become the money of the world, let's use our own car, I guess we cannot handle it. Public transport is also not like in Moscow, God knows how many times you have to transfer to get from one place to another. Here, in Moscow, believe me, life is more comfortable.

Moscow Model:

I think the truth of this should be like in Moscow. Since we live in the capitalist order today, free market conditions are valid, once there is a free market, it should be like here, you create a competitive environment, you take your taxes, the state wins, the taxi driver wins and the people are comfortable. Everybody wins. The people win the most. In today's system, tourists like me are staked because they do not speak Turkish, our name is also mentioned, and the people become disgraceful. At the moment, no one is satisfied with this situation except for three or five jackals. I'm not talking about my fellow workers who work as drivers, I'm talking about license plate brokers who have multiple license plates.

If you prevent this arrangement from being made and continue to make such mistakes with political concerns, despite the needs of the people, just for the sake of stubbornness, let's not make the municipality do business but fall out of the eyes of the people, you will get the reward in the nearest election. Until that day, you remain with what you have persecuted everyone, and most of all you have persecuted the people.

Is it possible to change taxi business in Istanbul?

I don't know how they can do it in Istanbul, but the time has come to put an end to this taxi plate rent, no one is tormented because three or five taxi plate holders will earn big money. In any case, the money earned by taking ah will not have abundance, nor will it have any good.

Investment jobs are risky. It may be wise to invest in a taxi license plate in a timely manner, but now times have changed. What is the investment of taxi plates in this era, it is not understandable. Perhaps there is no such thing anywhere but us. Once upon a time, people with the same mind also opposed the printing press, they were worried about what would happen to the authors and calligraphers who produced books by hand, perhaps this delay in the printing press was one of the reasons for the collapse of the huge empire, a manifestation of the disease of not catching up with the age. The result is clear, if you don't catch up with the era, you will perish!

I stubbornly stubbornly resist those who are too stubborn there, they say I have one place two wings. It is useful for everyone to come to their senses and recover.

These people are prudent, but they know very well that when the day comes for those who are stubborn, they should do their due matters.  If you look at the dusty shelves of history, you can find a lot of political parties with high voting potential in time.

If you don't want to be next, sit down and find a solution to Istanbul's taxi problem.

Love and respect from Moscow