Almost 50 people took the exam yesterday organized by the Santa Eulària Town Hall to obtain the taxi driver‘s credential, “an essential permit to be able to perform the tasks of chauffeur within the tourism public passenger transport service”.
Most signed up with the aim of turning their lives around professionally, as is the case of Antonio Zurdo. At 59, he recognized that “it is never too late to get what you want, like being a taxi driver”, after a lifetime working as a receptionist in different hotels. “It’s just a few months of work and then I can take advantage of it to do things I have pending,” he said. And when the season is over? “I will study other things that I didn’t have time for before,” she said, adding that “there is always something to do”.
Zurdo, who said he is “fit and eager” to get behind the wheel, attended the exam accompanied by his brother-in-law, Antonio Blanes. He has been a taxi driver for many years, until the pandemic accelerated his retirement, so there is no one better than him to provide encouragement and also to tell him the pros and cons of the profession. “A season as a taxi driver in Ibiza is stressful,” he warned. “Until now we used to work 12 hours a day, but little by little this is being limited to make eight-hour days with days off,” he added.
But sometimes the work overload is the least of it. “Everything happens to you. In a cab you’re sold out,” he lamented. “One day I was driving a client and he kept telling me to go slowly because he had to look up the number of the street where he was staying. I was asking him how far away he was and when I realized I was talking to myself because he had gotten out without me noticing. He had told me that so he wouldn’t have to pay,” he said. He laughed about it, although he admitted that, that day, he was not so amused.
Belén Montesinos knows a lot about anecdotes. This 22-year-old also took the test yesterday. Practically her whole family works in the sector, so “you can imagine what the topic of conversation is at dinner parties,” she said. She especially remembers the story her brother once told her. “Several Englishmen had gotten into the cab and, since they drive on the left there, they thought my brother was one of them, because of where he was sitting. Then they grabbed his ears and twisted them as if he were a motorcycle: brrrum, brrrum! When they realized, they just said sorry”.
Montesinos has been working as a waitress since she was 16, but she did not miss the opportunity to present herself: “Maybe someday I’ll want to do something different,” she said, knowing that the permit is valid for four years. Joan Ferrer presented himself in the same situation. At 23, he has “little jobs” in progress, but he likes driving and his family are taxi drivers.
Families of taxi drivers
Most of those who came to the Palacio de Congresos yesterday have relatives or acquaintances in the profession; including Lourdes Cordero. She works in the hospitality industry, but at 45 years of age she believes that “you have to keep trying other things”. Yesterday was the second time she took this exam; she also did it in 2017.
Jordi Vidal also took the test yesterday. He is 34 years old and always works seasonally, but “at the moment I don’t like what I do”, like Ángela Zamora. At 29, she is tired of working a lot and not getting paid accordingly. “I was in the hotel business, but here you earn more,” she said. She is looking forward to a new stage and, if they offer her a job in winter, “it would be perfect”. This is the opinion of Adrián Tur, perhaps the youngest student in the exam. At the age of 19 he decided to sit the exam to “be able to help his parents this summer”.
Knowledge
To pass the test and obtain the taxi driver’s credential, the candidates had to have some knowledge of the island’s geography. In addition, they had to know the streets of the different urban centers of Santa Eulària, places of leisure and recreation for the masses, public offices, official centers, hotels and the most direct routes to reach the destination points.
Likewise, it was requested to know the content of the National Regulations of the Urban Light Car Transport Service, of the present ordinance, the current rates of application to these services, as well as the rules of use of the Radio-Taxi service; and also to have a knowledge of Catalan, at least at a conversational level.
Almost all admitted that it had not taken them long to prepare for the exam, some even said they had looked at “four things” the night before. “We’re from here and we already know everything,” they said. Or, at least, almost everything.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.