High Gas Prices Hit Cab Drivers Especially Hard

www.kolotv.com 02/25/03 by Ed Pearce, ed.pearce@kolotv.com

RENO -- Gas prices are still on the rise.  While some analysts say pressure for them to continue rising may be easing a bit now that the oil strike in Venezuela is over, there is still little hope they'll go down any time soon.

These hikes affect all of us, but some of us are feeling it more directly than others.

The news at the pump has been getting worse for some time.  Two months ago regular was a $1.31 per gallon at a Stop-and-Go station in Reno.  By two weeks ago, it was 35 cents higher.  Last week added a nickel.  Yesterday, it was six cents higher, then hours later it rose again by two cents.

Few of us fail to notice the difference when we fill up the tank every week or so. No one watches it more closely than the area's cab drivers.

"It's up above $1.80," laments cabbie Scott Williams.  "Right there, it rose two cents overnight."

Williams drives for Reno-Sparks Cab, and like other cabbies he buys his own gas every day.  Every day, it hurts a little more.  It adds up.

"My monthly income is down $80 to $90 at a time when the economy is slow to begin with," Williams says.

There's no relief in sight.  Williams can't raise cab rates -- they're set by the state's Transportation Services Agency.  The cab companies would have to apply for an increase.  Drivers like Williams are caught in between, and every new hike in gas prices comes right out of their personal profit margin.

At a busier time of the year, the loss would be easier to absorb, but things are always slow in Reno in late February.  This year, a daily trip to the pump makes it seem all the more so.

"What are you going to do?  You have to put food on the table," Williams says.  "Things will get better.  They have to.  In this business, I can't see it getting worse."