43%

Back to Nagoya after the weekend on the road singing about potatoes.

There was a big queue of taxis at the station divided into two lines. One is for the big cars and one is for the small cars. I would imagine that the small cars do much better, but I must ask them sometime.

I got into the first car in the small car line. It was a kojin taxi. I'm getting more of those these days. They must be happy about that because they get almost all of their business from road and station pickups. They have a musen dispatch service that is run by their group, but it doesn't seem to give them that much work. The other benefit from paying into the group seems to be the annual trip to an onsen.

43% - that's what the average taxidriver gets to take home out of your fare. So when you get in a taxi that's been waiting outside the station for 40 minutes and you ask him to take you around the corner, don't be surprised if he doesn't look happy. It's not your problem, but it's nice to remember that he only gets 43% of the 560 yen that you pay out. That's about 241 yen. Certainly not enough to buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks and not even enough for him to buy his daily pack of cigerettes even if they are among the cheapest in the developed world.

Becoming a kojin taxi driver takes 10 years of experience with a company. With deregulation of the industry, taxi companies can increase the number of drivers and cars as much as they like. It only takes a month to become a taxi driver. Laid-off from salaryman land one month, working as a low-paid driver the next. The companies treat their drivers pretty well really - providing cheap accomodation for the many drivers who come from the country to work in the big city. In Nagoya, most of the drivers of the eight thousand taxis seem to come from Kyushu.

My driver tonight was from Nagoya though. He had worked for 35 years in some kind of architectural business. Then he had worked for 10 years at Tsubame taxi company - now he had become a kojin. He looked far too young for all that experience. Something must have been lost in the translation. As well as the 10 years experience, a would-be kojin driver also needs to pass a test.

You aren't allowed have a crash when you're working for a company. Well, at least not a crash that you're responsible for. Otherwise, you'll never have the chance to become a kojin driver. You're also not allowed to commit any crimes. Interestingly, once you become a kojin driver, you can crash as many times as you like and they won't take away your kojin licence. I don't think that you're allowed to commit as many crimes as you like. For that you need to become a politician.