Fierce competition and, in many instances, heavy demand from owners of the motor vehicles being used to offer taxi services have resulted in a general scramble among cab drivers to earn as much as they can.

So when a cabbie who will provide his service without pay, or even accommodates passengers’ requests to take them off his route (referred to as a turn-off and which costs a bit more), it’s kind of rare.

Al Price is one such taxi driver.

Price, who has been operating a taxi for five years, told the Jamaica Observer that once his passengers explain to him that they are short on cash and are unable to pay him, he will not turn them away.

“If yuh come, mi nuh have to really know yuh, and you want a drive, mi will look on yuh and say ‘Weh you a go? and you seh ‘mi bruk’ and yuh ask mi if mi can do it for yuh, mi will do it. That nah tek nothing out of me fi do, you know,” Price said.

“Up to last night [Monday], a youth a go down Maxfield Avenue side seh him nuh have nuh fare. So mi seh ‘Come in, you nuh one regular [customer]?’ Mi nah go hold out on him fi that. Mi know one day him will see mi back and seh ‘See something here.’ Always, from yuh come and mi can do it, mi will do it,” Price said.

“The same youth from last night, is a turn-off him want, enuh because him live a Maxfield Avenue and mi have to turn down Lincoln Road and come back round on Maxfield Avenue. Fi the regular drive a $120 and fi the turn-off, $250. Mi just carry him because mi know if him did have it, him woulda pay mi, because a fi him regular turn-off, so mi sure a that,” Price related.

He is convinced that the generosity he extends to his passengers has resulted in blessings from God, especially because, just before he spoke with the Observer, he was chartered by a woman who paid him more than he would normally have earned for a trip to her destination.

“Mi just come in ’bout half an hour a go and a lady come; a the first mi a see her but she remember me from the days when mi used to run bus from Cross Roads to Waterhouse. When she come now she have a couple boxes and a bag [and] seh she want to go to Tangerine Road. So, me seh Tangerine a outta my routine, enuh. She seh, ‘Come man’. So, mi help her and put the box dem inna di trunk. Me and her deh there and she a remind me of some things, and mi carry her still and she give mi a little extra, ’bout $500. She a ask mi if mi nuh remember her, but mi nuh remember [her] face,” Price said.

“Some people just genuine and like your ways so them will travel with you,” he said, adding that he appreciated the woman’s kindness.

— Candice Haughton