TAXI! : 17-Year Veteran Gives Some Tips on Driving a Cab in Orange County, Where There Are No Big Cities and Practically Everyone Has a Car or 2

It was only 2:30 on this Thursday afternoon outside the John Wayne Airport terminal, but the 12 taxicabs parked across the street were idle and empty.

To Tony Giannicchi, who mans the Yellow Cab “starter” booth as point man for the lineup of taxis at the airport, the lulls in customers this day seemed longer than usual.

Even for Orange County.

Only an hour earlier at the height of the last burst of arriving travelers, Giannicchi was doing his maitre d’ taxi bit, joking and bantering, guiding passengers to the nearest cab and bellowing at the drivers to keep in line.

You couldn’t miss Giannicchi, whose massive and gloriously rounded figure suggested a cross between Jackie Gleason and Sir John Falstaff. Naturally gregarious with a taxi man’s gift for gab, he was in his element amid all the commotion--a cabbie down to his last vocal chord.

But the 46-year-old Anaheim resident admits that Orange County isn’t the natural habitat for his line of work.

He should know. He has been in the taxi business for 17 years--first in his native New York state, the past six years in Orange County.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said, waving at the cloudless sky this day. “Orange County’s a pretty place. Lot’s of sun and space. Hey, my wife and kids would kill me if we moved anywhere else!”

Giannicchi was back inside the cab booth, glumly staring at the empty taxis--his 400-pound girth crammed inside the closet-size enclosure. “But let’s face it. Orange County isn’t Manhattan. It isn’t Boston or Philly or even L.A. You have to work your butt off to make it here. This isn’t taxi country.”

With its suburban roots, its breakaway from the life style and density of old big-city cores, its multitudes of families who get around in their own multi-car fleets, Orange County has never had a great demand for taxis.

New York City, America’s taxi capital, boasts 11,700 licensed cabs. Washington has 7,000, Chicago, 4,800, Los Angeles 1,300.

Orange County’s handful of licensed companies can muster no more than 280 cabs, and most of these are with the three major established firms--Yellow Cab of North Orange County, Coast Yellow Cab Cooperative and West Coast Cab.

Yet these majors, whose combined rosters total most of the 490 drivers in Orange County, said the taxi business is growing very nicely, thanks to the expanding office, hotel and tourist developments.

And these firms still manage to attract people to be cab drivers, despite the job’s still lowly status, its financially precarious reputation and its image as a prime target for holdups.

The Orange County taxi force reflects the classic, all-walks-of-life strata synonymous with the business--everyone from teachers, aerospace workers, computer technicians and sales clerks to recently arrived immigrants and unemployed seasonal workers from other fields. (Women still constitute a small minority.)

But these firms admitted that their line of work is still burdened by the “old image problem”--the feeling that many taxi drivers are a rather shady lot.

While Orange County firms are regulated by the cities in which they operate, there are none of the city-required “taxi schools” on driving basics and customer relations found in New York City and some other Eastern areas.

Nevertheless, local firms pointed out that prospective drivers are required to have clean driving records and must pass police-record checks in order to receive city-issued taxi driver permits. And firms said the number of local complaints over taxi service--such as overcharging and roundabout trips--are relatively few, including those reported to the city agencies.

But the taxi business, being what it is, hasn’t lost its transient image, even in Orange County. As in the other areas, the turnover in drivers remains very high.

“It’s always been like this--taxi driving is a tough occupation,” explained Alfred LaGasse, executive vice president of the International Taxicab Assn. based in Kensington, Md. “A great many people have always drifted in and out of the field.”

But there has also been a solid core of career drivers, many of whom stay in the field for decades. “The job appeals to the maverick independent in a lot of people,” said LaGasse. “It’s sort of like being the last of the cowboys.”

Like Tony Giannicchi.

He started driving in 1973 with a cab company in Binghamton, N.Y. “It was supposed to be temporary, a way to make a few extra bucks while figuring what I was going to do with my life,” recalled Giannicchi, who had worked previously as a cook, a purchasing agent (while in the Air Force) and a shoe-factory laborer. “But it kind of grows on you. It gets in your blood.,”

In 1984, Giannicchi, married and raising six children, migrated to California and right off became a full-time driver in Orange County.

Although Giannicchi is currently employed by Coast Yellow Cab as a taxi coordinator--he assigns cabs early each morning at Coast’s Fountain Valley headquarters and mans the airport booth most weekdays--he still drives a leased cab once a week.

“I find I miss it. I like driving. There’s something about being out on the streets. It’s not anything like a 9-to-5 job. You’re on your own. You’re like a small, independent businessman--except your firm is the cab.”

There is yet another major job perk. “You never know who’s going get into your cab. Some flake. Some corporate bigwig. I even drove Martina Navratilova once,” he said.

“And some passengers just love to gab. Well, I’m known to be a little gabby and have a few opinions, too,” he grinned, in obvious understatement, “and we’ll take on any and every subject: Noriega. Gorbachev. Eastern Europe. Bush. The Super Bowl. You name it!”

Even at 7:30 a.m. this Friday, after he had spent three hours assigning cabs, Giannicchi looked fresh and chipper for his 12-hour driving shift.

He was casually dressed--red sweater and blue jeans--a far cry from the one-time somber uniform look of taxi drivers. He was also cap-less.

He squeezed into the front seat of a Ford sedan, put the map book away, and placed his good-luck toy doggie on the dashboard. He then slipped his Newport Beach and Costa Mesa taxi driver permits into a window pocket. Stashed to one side were his science-fiction books--an Isaac Asimov and a Frederik Pohl--to read during long waits.

“The pressure never lets up,” he said, as he drove onto the San Diego Freeway. “We live from fare to fare.” At Coast Yellow Cab, the standard 12-hour leasing costs are $58 for the vehicle, plus mileage and gas charges. A typical 175-mile shift would cost the driver around $82. The rest goes to the driver as take-home pay.

The dispatcher radio--always turned on--is their lifeline. “You always have to be ready to grab a pick-up if you’re within 10 minutes away. You got to be fast or the other guy’s going to take it.” Otherwise, he is based at the airport on a first-come, first-served basis.

“You just pray your fare will be a biggie.” This means a $61 fare to Los Angeles International Airport or, at the very least, a $24 one to Disneyland or the Anaheim Convention Center.

The standard rates in Orange County are $3.10 the first mile, $1.40 each additional mile, slightly lower than those in Los Angeles but much higher than the New York City rates where, Giannicchi said, the business is not only far greater but fleet maintenance costs are lower.

But most trips from the John Wayne Airport are quickies--to offices, hotels and residences close to the airport or no farther than Newport Beach or Costa Mesa.

“You can’t get picky, though,” said Giannicchi, as he took his place at the end of the airport lineup. “The longer runs can come in bunches, then not again for weeks. Except for L.A. or Westwood, the farthest I’ve ever driven is San Diego, and that was only once.”

At 9:20 a.m., Giannicchi finally made it to the head of the line--nearly two hours into his shift.

He drove a businessman to an apartment complex in Newport Beach. The metered fare: $8.50. The tip: $1.50. “That’s about par--nothing big, nothing meager. But standard,” he said of the tip.

Answering a dispatcher call, he picked up two airport-bound passengers at a close-by Costa Mesa motor inn. The fare: $7.90. The tip: 10 cents. “Now, that’s a little meager,” he said sourly, rolling his eyes heavenward.

“Most people are OK, maybe not big tippers, but reasonable. Some of the best tippers are businessmen at the trade shows. The worst conventioneers,” he added with a grimace, “are, so help me, doctors and attorneys.”

“Women executives are lousy tippers. Any time. Hey, I don’t want to sound chauvinistic, but that’s the truth. They don’t seem to understand the art of tipping.”

His most-remembered case of under-tipping involved a drive to Linda Isle in Newport Harbor. “Talk about posh. The house was on the water. Outside were a Rolls, a Jag and a Mercedes. The fare was $11.60. He gave me $12 and told me to keep the change.”

As the man walked away, Giannicchi, who was having a bad day anyway, was livid. He dug into his pocket, took out 40 cents and tossed it on the sidewalk.

“Ok, maybe that was a wee bit rude of me. But I’ll tell you, I felt better!”

At 3 p.m., Giannicchi was back at the airport, standing outside his cab, sipping a Diet 7-Up and joking around with the other drivers.

Business was at least picking up. Giannicchi had racked up four more fares, including a $24 trip to the Anaheim Hilton and squeezing in time for a quick, drive-thru hamburger.

His waiting-time discourse this time: driving around Orange County. “It was a cultural shock for me when I came here (in 1984). You got nothing but freeways and families with two or three cars. No one stands on the corner flagging taxis down. If they did, people would think they were crazy.”

Like many other transplanted drivers, Giannicchi got lost in the sprawl. He wasn’t used to meandering new tract streets, the criss-crossing maze of freeways, the absence of easy landmarks. “If I didn’t see the ocean, or smell it, I didn’t know where the hell I was.”

But he is impressed by the motorists here. “Drivers out here are more courteous--if you discount the drive-by shooters. Most people let you pass and smile back. Drivers back in New York fight for every inch of road. And they don’t smile.”

In his 17 years as a taxi driver, he has never been robbed or attacked. “I’m lucky, I guess, and I want to keep it that way.”

Although the incidence of violence against taxi drivers is less in Orange County, some nationally publicized studies have confirmed the high-risk factor. Like all-night clerks and similar occupations, taxi drivers are considered among the most susceptible to being robbed or murdered.

The last taxi-driver murder in Orange County was about nine years ago, taxi officials said. The number of reported robberies involving drivers has been sporadic, they claim, averaging about one every month or so.

Still, Giannicchi, like other drivers, follows some rather clear-cut rules of the road. “You stick to areas you’re familiar with. You keep out of the obvious trouble spots. You trust your instincts about whether to pick up a fare or leave them. I don’t drive late at night, either.”

But if “worst came to worst, you don’t resist,” he said. “You let them take what you have. You don’t play hero.”

When the subject turned to the traditional derogatory image of taxi drivers, one especially linked to the street-hard New York City cabbie, Giannicchi sounded both disgusted and dismayed.

“That reputation’s a bum rap. Sure, I know the image--that all drivers are lazy, can’t find a better job, can’t be trusted and are always out to gouge you. OK, there’s always a few bad apples, and some of that image fits these guys.”

Added Giannicchi, his voice rising: “Most people treat us with respect. But some passengers treat us like dirt, like we’re beneath them, like you don’t exist. Maybe it’s that crummy image, or maybe they need someone to kick around.

“But let me tell you: the great majority of drivers are decent working people. We resent it when people lump us all in the same barrel with the bad apples--especially when we’re out there breaking our necks trying to make a living.”

Financially, being a cab driver is a real roller coaster, said Giannicchi, as he drove back into the Coast Yellow Cab yard at 7:30 p.m., the end of his shift.

He figured he is making around $20,000 a year as a full-time cab coordinator and part-time driver for Coast. If he were still working full time as a driver, he estimated he would be making about $16,000.

His total earnings this Friday, including tips, were around $150. That meant a take-home pay of at least $70.

Not too bad, Giannicchi said, especially for a Friday that had started so badly. “You never know how it’s going to turn out. It’s like gambling. You can hit the jackpot one day--like breaking $100 in take-home pay. Other times, you’re lucky if you break even.”

On the worst days, it’s easy for taxi drivers to think of quitting the business. Giannicchi admitted that he’s had those dog days, too.

Christmas Eve, 1984, started out that way.

He was a struggling newcomer to Orange County who had just brought his family out from New York. “We were then living day to day in a motel, my wife and I just earning enough for food and lodging.”

But not enough, he remembered, to buy a Christmas tree or presents for the children.

So he kept driving the streets, even though Christmas Eve business was extremely slow and he had made barely enough to cover leasing expenses. He was about to call it a day when he answered one last call: a pick-up fare on Balboa Island.

The passenger’s fare for his trip to north Costa Mesa was $10. But the “guy gave me $50, told me to keep the change and wished me a Merry Christmas!”

Six years later, Giannicchi is obviously still warmed--and somewhat awed--by the memory of that passenger’s grand gesture.

“My family had a great Christmas--after all--that year.” Then still grinning, he added: “That $40 is still the biggest tip I’ve ever gotten.”

TAXIS: HOW WE FARE

Licensed Number Area Population Taxicabs Drivers Fares New York City 7.3 mill 11,700 40,000 $2.50/$1.25 District of 629,000 7,000 8,600 by zones starting Columbia at $2.65 Chicago 3.0 mill 4,800 12,000 $1.90/90 cents Los Angeles 3.3 mill 1,300 3,500 $3.30/$1.60 Orange County 2.3 mill 280 490 $3.10/$1.40

Rates given above: first figure is for cost of first mile. Second figure for cost of each additional mile.

Sources: Orange County figures are from local taxicab firms and city agencies; other figures are from the regulating agencies in New York City, District of Columbia, Chicago and city of Los Angeles.