Taking’ a taxi The cops want your DUI money... and it shows!
Cincinnati in general has a piss poor public transportation system at best. Clermont County doesn’t even have anything worthy of the title “public transportation”.
I have no idea why because it’s not like we’re tax free or anything. Public officials act like the idea of 24 hour public buses is an idea born out of “Minority Report” or something. Wrong. I bet when those same well salaried officials go to Las Vegas to spend some well deserved fun in the sun they ride either a bus or a taxi the entire time. Thus avoiding a criminal OVI charge.
Vegas residents enjoy 24 hour bus and monorail service. It’s a whopping “buck a ride” or you can buy a pass for the month for $20. They have it made.
Meanwhile all of us residents still back here in Amish country are desperately trying to figure out how to get to the clubs for a little Eastside R&R without ending up being read our rights. It’s getting harder
and harder to do too. One
look at www.statepatrol.ohio.gov will show you some numbers that are a bit difficult to believe.
The OVI (DUI) statistics (Jan-Sept 2007) from the State Patrol state that
Clermont County had 457 OVI’s. Hamilton County only 213.
The State Patrol also confirms that in 2006 (Jan-Sept) that out of 88 counties in Ohio Clermont ranked 6th in OVI stops with 615 stops. Hamilton wasn’t even in the top 40. Lets make some sense of this. Lets look at the population vs. OVI stops.
County/Total Stops/Population/ %
Clermont/615/192,706/3
Hamilton/210/882,596/.25
Wow, either Clermont residents are far heavier drinkers than our neighbors in Hamilton County (yeah right) or the police in Clermont County are about 12 times more vicious. You be the judge.
Everyone knows that people would take a bus to the bars if they were provided one. It’s the most effective tool to combat drunk driving there is. Maybe M.A.D.D. should use their money to help create a public transit system instead of whatever it is they spend the millions on now and actually prevent problems instead of just screaming about them. Non profit my ass. M.A.D.D. isn’t coming to the rescue and neither is the County. We have to find our own individual solutions for the issue. It’s a shame, Vegas runs a profitable bus service without the aid of taxes and our taxes keep climbing but yet we see no improvements at all. We need to pay more attention to who we are electing people. Next election we’ll give the facts on who stands for what around here and maybe we can make a difference. For now we’re stuck with what we have and what we have is the taxi.
The only taxis listed in the phone book (Clermont version) are A-1 Eastern Hills Taxi, Dano’s Taxi, Eastside Yellow Cab and Express Cab. Carls Cab isn’t on the list.
EV put the taxis to the test by using them to go to Rhinos and back from Milford and Anderson residences. We were interested in a lot more than prices too. We called two cabs a while back and neither even showed up. Once we called for one to go from Paxtons Grill to MTT’s and they flat out said “we don’t have time for that” I won’t mention the name because we started this new comparison from scratch. The past is the past.
First off from Milford we used Express Cab. The owner quoted us $12-$14 and she was on the money. The ride was right at $13. Coming back to Milford we used Dano’s. He was already at Rhinos and he quoted us the same $12-$15. However the meter spins slightly faster in Dano’s car as the end charge was a bit over $15. The driver was competitive and only charged us the $13 we paid for Express. From Anderson to Rhinos we used A-1 Taxi. We were quoted $15 but it came in at $13.90 Dano,s was on the ball and once again the driver outside Rhinos we used called for a another car to send our friends back to Anderson. The quote was $15 the actual charge was $14. Why did we use Dano’s twice when we could have used Carls Cab or Community Cab? Simple, they were also waiting outside Rhinos but their quotes were much higher. Both quoted us $20-$23. Not very competitive.
We give Danos (797-4411) and Express (575-0721) the thumbs up. They were right on time and on the money. They also work together sometimes for better service.
The very best deal in the Eastside though is Putters Tavern. Putters sends out the Caddy limo to your door for $5 each way (per person 10 mile limit). That’s a deal, Plus you get to feel like Johnny Cash riding in the back of that big Cadillac and that’s always cool. Putters gets the top spot but Dano’s and Express are the best for getting everywhere else. Use them, stay OVI free
.
