Taxi passengers who are feeling a little woozy on the ride home will now have to fork over more than just their metered fare if they get sick inside a cab.
B.C.’s Passenger Transportation Board revised its standard rules for taxicab fares in mid-July, allowing drivers to collect a $75 fee if passengers “soil or damage the interior of a vehicle with bodily fluids or solids.”
Passengers would be on the hook to pay the clean-up fee in addition to their fare.
B.C. Taxi Association president Mohan Singh Kang said drivers are counting on passengers to honour the new rule and realize it’s the “fair thing to do.”
Otherwise, he said, the new rule could be hard to enforce since it’s unlikely police would respond to a call regarding a passenger refusing to pay the vomit fee.
Instead, he said drivers would have to seek out legal means to collect the charge.
Although a passenger who refuses to pay the fee is also unlikely to provide the driver with contact information, Kang said drivers could probably figure out who the person is since a home address if often the destination.
But Kang, who has been involved with the industry 35 years, noted vomiting in a cab does not happen on a regular basis.
When it does, however, he said drivers can lose out on a significant amount of fare due to the time spent off the road, cleaning up the mess left in their cab.
“This thing is fair — fair for the drivers and also for the (passenger) who is in that scenario,” he said.
