What happens when you call a cab and no one comes? What happens when you’re trying to make that Greyhound or an important meeting and can’t get a taxi?

Wait on the city bus? Lots of luck.

Bus drivers are on salary. Bus companies are operated on subsidies, which don’t figure to make a profit, or even to break even.

The cab business is different, they have to make a profit or at least break even. Expenses for a cab range from insurance (which can run $3,000 a year just for liability) to maintenance to office salaries for dispatchers.

A driver who rents a cab from an owner faces expenses of $455 a week rental and gas for seven days, which many drive. Often they don’t earn minimum wage.

Now the city‘s naïve taxi board, accustomed to a workingman’s problems, has taken a step to bankrupt the industry and its drivers.

They don’t want drivers to charge flat rates. That means a cab is expected to travel from the city to Soddy Daisy for a minimum of $1.50.

Would a board member do it? Would they run a city bus that far for $1.50?

They don’t pass legislation for a Burger King to sell a hamburger for 50 cents—and then deliver it to Soddy Daisy. But that’s similar to what they try to make cabs do.

There has to be a minimum charge for certain zones outside the normal area. A bus runs a route, doesn’t go into neighborhoods for one unusual call.

The ordinance needed updating to get away from the jitney system, with competition. Instead the new board will destroy cab service altogether.

Voice in the Crowd . . . Pete Chaney

My life, especially when it comes to money, has been like a yo-yo, going to the top and down to the bottom. At 21, I was publishing my first weekly newspaper and I’ve sold Encyclopaedia Britannica, built and sold a home a month for two years and developed a 400-lot subdivision. I also wrote a million seller book.

Driving a cab was something I had never considered until a newspaper I published went belly up and I wanted to earn a few dollars while I decided what to do. I had never done anything like that before. Taking the night shift, I felt I would be embarrassed if some of my friends and associates saw me. My wardrobe had no work clothes and I wore white shirt and tie and a sports coat.

No one told me any better, so I would go up and knock on a door even in the roughest neighborhoods. One woman said she was afraid to come out because she thought I was a detective. A police chastised me one night for walking through a housing project. "Please don’t do that again," he said.

A few weeks later a driver was shot knocking on a door in that area.

There was a camaraderie I enjoyed. Drivers came from all walks. One was a school teacher. Another a siding salesman with a drinking problem. There were felons on probation and ministers whose churches couldn’t afford a pastor. There was a certain equality and acceptance of each other.

Especially at night, a driver is like a father confessor. People need a stranger they never expect to see again so they can unburden their troubles to someone. They don’t want advice so much as they just want someone to listen.

One night, though, a woman said she was looking for her husband who was off with another woman. She had a gun and planned to kill him. As we drove we talked about their two children. I suggested she think about the good times she and her husband had, and how she would be taking a father and a mother from her children. He would be dead and she would be in prison.

She decided to go home and talk to him.

Another time, about 3 AM, a pretty young nurse pulled into the parking lot where I took a break. She was near nervous exhaustion. Her husband had left her and she wanted—companionship. Being a somewhat cautious person, I called another rambunctious driver to talk to her.

Once I carried a bank robber. I picked him up with his brief case at a phone booth. He looked like a business man, directed me across town to a bank and told me to wait in the lot near the bank while he went inside to "meet a friend." I read my paper and drove calmly away when he came back. He wanted to go to car dealer miles away. As we drove off, police cars were flying around me and I thought there must be a bad wreck. He paid me for the trip with a modest trip and he went inside. That night I saw a picture that looked like my passenger and called an officer I knew. "We already have him," he said. The man had gone inside, peeled the wrappers off his stolen money and paid cash for a car. He also gave them his real name, driver’s license and phone number.

Behind the wheel of a cab you’re on your own. You must adjust to whoever is the passenger. A driver can make a lot of friends. He can make a few enemies. With no idea who gets in the cab next, it can be a doctor or lawyer, a drug dealer or a prostitute.

Cab driving is said to be the second most dangerous job in the world, just behind a police officer.

A friend once asked me if I were afraid to drive. "If I were afraid," I said. "I wouldn’t do it."

One thing I advised about driving a cab: you have to love driving and you must love people.

It was almost 30 years ago when I drove my first cab. I’ve done it off and on since. Whatever I do, I want to do the best I can. I enjoy it. It’s fun—most of the time.

They people send their legislators to Nashville to represent them because the voters are judged to have senseenough to select the best people.

But the GOP members of the state senate have little respect for the intelligence of those who sent them there. They don’t figure the people have sense enough to decided for themselves if they want a state lottery or not.

Voters have complained that, whether they favor or don’t favor a lottery, they have the right to vote on it. The GOP members of the Senate said "No." No vote.

Many say they would have no sympathy for the budget crisis with legislators not looking at avenues, if it did not hurt them. Democratic Sen. Ward Crutchfield led a doomed fight for a lottery vote.

To his credit, at least Gov. Don Sundquist put out even unpopular options, including an income tax.

When Chattanooga hires headhunters to find key personnel, the so-called experts go to computers with their check list. They have no idea what it’s like in a community, or the needs.

Officials want to take politics and favoritism out of selections. It makes sense, almost.

The headhunters goofed on Harry Reynolds for the city schools and Skip Reeder for Erlanger Hospital. They nearly destroyed what they were supposed to improve.

And they all just viewed Chattanooga as a step toward bigger and better things.

Chief Jimmie Dotson took over the police department with no concept of Chattanooga. While robbery, murder and felonies were going on, he wanted to give tickets for seat belt violations.

Now he thinks a ticket for going one mile over the speed limit will cure car fatalities and reduce crime.

While police write a one mile ticket or stay tied down on speed traps, robbery and murder can be happening a few blocks away. The old adage is true: best deterrent to reckless driving is a police car in the rear view mirror.

It makes sense that the same officers locked at one location would give better protection cruising their areas.

Already hamstrung by manpower shortages, they can’t respond to a breakin or assault.

A group of teenagers off Willow Street are getting away with carjacking routinely. They even stole two highly visible Mercury Cabs within two weeks.

One cab was parked overnight in Highland Park in sight of Tennessee Temple.

When police give chase, they jump out, run and start looking for another car.

Police know who is doing it, but can’t catch them.

In Highland Park, the neighborhood association has begged for more officers. But they won’t be available as long as they are sent away on flukes.

Chief Dotson is given credit by some officers for breaking up the "good ole boy system." But that has its drawbacks.

Officers familiar with territories and their partners were split up and moved. Valuable experience was discarded.

City Hall has had high hopes for Chief Dotson.

Maybe he can do the job—if he just gets his priorities straight.

It’s more important to catch a thief than load the courts with "one mile speeders."

Post Script

Big fish always gobble up little fish. Pioneer Bank was swallowed by First American, which in turn was taken over by AmSouth. Now Wachovia Bank is licking its chops over AmSouth. The Winston-Salem headquartered institution used to be chided with the name "Watch-over-ya."

You can always count on BILL COX taking part in veterans events such as the Armed Forces Day celebration. A veteran himself, Bill knows what it’s like to serve our country.

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In coming months, you’ll hear the name of MIKE MAHN mentioned more and more often as a candidate for mayor. He has some strong support urging him to get into the race. As one observer said, Mike has the ability and would be a great mayor if he has the "fire in the belly" to get into it. Let’s watch and see.

A lot of folks wonder why ERIK GRAY is leaving the Athletic Department at UTC. The PR man helped organize a veterans salute at Finley Stadium during the arena’s first year. It was appreciated particularly by veterans.