<&>Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English Version One <&>Copyright 1998 School of Linguistics & Applied Language Studies <&>Victoria University of Wellington <&>side two <&>0:24 good morning raewyn hello um bill i'm a bit nervous first time caller here i just wanted to um just pass on to your listeners <{><[>an episode i had with a taxi driver um i got in the cab after working late shift at the hospital um to take the a cab from wellington hospital through to lyall bay <[>mm yep and um this taxi driver spoke very broken english and i realised that he <.>w was starting to go off course to lyall bay we were going <&>1:00 round the kilbirnie heights area and <.>w when i tried to to tell him not don't go this way you go that way he could he could hardly understand um what i was saying and i became very nervous about this and i got i asked to get out of the cab and that was fine but from then on whenever i take a cab um i always have a look at the number of the cab um and they display a photo of the cab driver now this photo was not was of this person driving the cab <{1><[1>he said it was his brother um voc there's certain things that you can do voc he tried to get me to sit in the front of the cab i never do that i always sit in the back and i always have the keys to my house between my fingers um if i've got to take a cab er <{2><[2>you've got to be really mm? <[1>oh <[2>so if you strike out if you if you if you strike out the keys protruding from between your fingers and you can do some damage yeah at least you've got something in your hand <&>2:00 that's a good idea um but i always take a note of who's driving that cab and what he looks like and if his picture matches the actual cab driver because on that particular night he it didn't and it really scared me yeah it sounds really creepy raewyn the chances are he just couldn't speak very much english and got lost <{><[>but you never quite know where he was taking you <[>yeah you don't know do you <{><[>and i <[>did you report him no i i didn't er when i look back i'm silly not to <{><[>and i i didn't also realise that um you could take any cab in a in a lineup i didn't realise that i i thought you had to take the first one available so it's good to know that <[>mm yes you can just move down the queue until you find someone who looks sort of er well comfortable and nice to be with yes but i do find a lot of the time possibly nice men too jump out of the cab to open the door for you to get in aha but invariably they they open that front door <{><[>and i think <[>and you want to be in the back <.>ou out of harms way and i <&>3:00 think that er a woman is safer in the back yes that's a good point <{><[>two two good tip there well in fact several good tips there but i word the one with the keys too because er you may not be very strong and able to swing much of a punch as a male or a female but if you put an object in your hands like a set of keys and the keys protrude between the fingers if you have to defend yourself there's something very nasty and pointy sticking out <[>yes yes and you can do a little bit of damage which might just keep them at bay that second or two you need to get <{><[>away <[>mm you often wonder if you'd actually be able to but voc at least it's there as an option <{><[>laughs <[>laughs that's true <{><[>raewyn <[>thanks bill okay bye <{><[>bye er gary yes hello how are you gary <[>bye gidday bill how are you voc well i'm losing my voice but apart from that i'm fine yeah well you you sound as if you know me but i certainly know you i've had the pleasure of er driving you up to t three er t v three several times <{><[>and i back in about eighty nine <[>oh yeah right er i'm sorry to hear these sad stories coming across the radio this morning mm and um <.>i i'm not a cab driver now i couldn't keep up <&>4:00 with the seventy hours a week they were virtually demanding of us but er i agree with absolutely with one of your callers and that was ross he's been in it a long time yeah i think i know ross yes well everybody knows <{1><[1>ross and um what's happening today bill is the fact that there is so much unemployment er that people are buying taxis or becoming taxi drivers just out of sheer something to do it's it's they're buying themselves a job <{2><[2>now i believe like a radio announcer er a a a taxi driver he's got to want to do that job <.>i it's a it's quite a <,> difficult job to do sometimes and you got to like to speak to people and er you know p r work so there are people that should never be taxi drivers are becoming taxi drivers because they're buying themselves a job <[1>laughs <[2>yeah yeah word buying themselves a taxi and um you know the people that wanted all these taxis at five <&>5:00 oclock at night when they wanted one they SURE got them now <{><[>and they're not very happy with them are they <[>they're paying the they're paying a real penalty for clause for it i mean we shouldn't get too too too crazed here it's only it's it's three rapes and well actually that is quite a lot because it's only march well there's a lot happens to taxi drivers out there too but er the <.>th raewyn er i think raewyn the girl you had on before um <,> i used to like people sitting in in the front of the cab with me because i enjoyed my job so much that i used to like talking to people yes and and it's a bit hard looking in a <.>ve rear vision mirror <{1><[1>having eye contact and keeping your eyes on the road but most ladies like being in the back of the car because they like being <,> pampered or chauffeured <{2><[2>you understand what i'm saying <[1>yeah <[2>mm and you got a bit of room in the back and you can sit back there i could see that too but <{><[>i <.>s i if i was a driver i wouldn't be too keen to have <.>so some of the blokes sitting behind me <[>yeah er from a security point of view well we exhales we do have some undesirables and er <&>6:00 you know a friend of mine got stabbed um out in strathmore aha er you know <.>a and it's it's you never know what's who is going to hop into your cab now you say to me that er er passengers can choose their drivers <{><[>but er it's not always a driver can choose his passengers not THESE days cos he'll take anything it's it's a tough world out there <[>mm well that's right and er but i'd say that you'd be one of my <.>be er better passengers that i had and we had a very interesting conversation which i can't talk about on air really <{><[>so <[>laughs okay well look it's good to hear from you again <.>i you got out of the job you're doing doing something better now <{><[>or different <[>er well yes and no no i had a small injury which put me out of driving for a while but i'm doing a bit of stretch limo work now <{><[>so i might even meet you again <[>oh well i'm sure you will i i i take stretch limos all the time <{><[>laughs <[>yeah i know laughs never but one day maybe the price of fame yeah okay well look maybe two zed b will give me a stretch limo ALL of my own so i can come to work in the morning FAT chance we'll be back after the news <&>6:54 <&>commercial break <&>7:00 er dear now coming up shortly we'll be talking to anne fleming from the wellington rape crisis er centre on that taxi issue we were discussing before the news at TEN she's a rape er crisis member of that collective that looks after er um those kind of situations THREE rapes in cabs in this year alone and many more sexual assaults and claims of er quite peculiar behaviour we've been discussing what to do about that i'm still taking your suggestions on four seven two ten thirty five <&>7:30 <&>commercial break <&>7:34 it's twenty one minutes past ten good morning david gidday what can we do for you i'm a er security consultant i've been listening to er what you've had to say the last couple of days i'm actually down from auckland just visiting in wellington trying to drum up some business mhm um i used to actually be a constable in australia and um about your taxis i've <,> well over there we we encourage anyone <&>8:00 that has any suggestive behaviour from drivers or anything indecent mentioned to them that they come to the police rather than to the federation or <{><[>to the taxi companies and um <[>right even something as mild as just this guy was a creep he kept asking me questions about whether i had a boyfriend whether you know and and questions about sex and i just felt he was an utter sleaze bag and i felt threatened by him you know it's not an assault is it it's not er no but it's intimidation mm or could be viewed by intimidation um i'm sure your rape crisis lady'll tell you the same you know don't muck around with dealing with the taxi company but go to the police and that way they make up a profile and if they get if this guy does it you know couple or three times then then they'll take action and you know you can be sure THEY'LL let the taxi drivers er the taxi federation know yeah david i mean one of the other issues we've been discussing over the last few days is is one of the malls here in town now this is an open air mall it's just a a street that's been closed off to traffic <.>ma manners mall there's been a a lot of petty harassment from small gangs of youths er maybe thirty forty kids at <&>9:00 the most but people are getting assaulted people are feeling insecure <.>how you're a security consultant can you <.>c i mean can you actually put security into a mall like that like you can with say with the big closed in malls you find in the suburbs we sure can um i actually went down to have a look after you talked about yesterday um what what we could do is put a couple of security guards in there and or we'd probably need three for a place of that size and perhaps some cameras and just monitor the situation but to do that would probably cost the retailers around three grand a week that much that much yeah um if you're looking at three three security guard's wages plus monitoring and all all the rest of it mhm and um you know at at the risk of losing business <.>i it's <.>r seems to be really up to the police it's quite a public shopping centre that yeah um and er yeah the the retailers are really losing out by having these these these people hanging around um but um yeah it won't be cheap to put security in there what about security cameras alone would they be <&>10:00 worthwhile having so you can at least identify offenders afterwards they they sure could be um but i don't know the sort of people that hang around there do they have the smarts to know that they're gonna get caught on camera <{><[>er while the incident is taking place <[>well they're pretty most of them i <.>me they're shrewd there's no doubt about that they're street smart <,> what's that they're street they're street smart right you know they've got the the you know they're smart at that <.>cu <.>ra rat cunning level right it comes back to whether the police'd be interested in following up on the videos as well yeah um i'm not sure whether the the area is owned by the wellington district council or whether it's owned by the retailers or what um well the actual street area that's been our mall is actually owned by the city council it's it's it's public road that's been er basically cut off to vehicle traffic right well what they could do is if they they were concerned about this or the retailers got to them they could install video cameras and all crack down the police and say you know we want this stopped and issue trespass notices that's what we're doing in in auckland in a lot of public places yeah to stop these kids from <&>11:00 coming back in and if they are then they are arrested or <{><[>removed <[>voc that is nice thought that that that if you did have some measure of security there you could issue trespass <.>nos notices and that might clear it out where where they'd move to then lord only knows but at least they wouldn't be hanging around manners mall where you want to shop that's right and er apparently all your <.>subu well most of your suburbs have security incorporated in them anyway yep they do all right david listen thanks for your advice nice to hear from a pro okay okay <{><[>then bye bye <[>great bye <&>11:20