Coquitlam Taxi number

CQUITLAM ( NEWS 1130 ) - A Coquitlam taxi firm says it is making a dedicated telephone line for clients with specific needs after acknowledging that it "dropped" the bullet when it abandoned an older lady in a chair who waited for long periods in the cold on Canada Day. On Wednesday afternoons Bel-Air Taxi and Coquitlam's Mayor Richard Stewart visited each other to find out what was happening between Merle Smith's booking of her taxi at 8pm and her arrival at noon.

Mr Stewart proposed that the firm should provide the number. "They' re committing themselves to install some kind of extra telephone number for those repeat customers who have significant physical limitations, so that they can get in touch if something goes awry and try to find a fast fix," Stewart said. Smiths says Merle Smith, 70, pre-ordered a taxi to collect her at 9pm after the Lafarge Lake bonfire at Town Centre Park, but the taxi never showed up.

Said if the firm received phone calls requesting handicapped taxi assistance, the call would be highlighted and associated with the nearest available named car but in Smith's case the call would fall on the way. "We' re dragging all our dispatcher back in for further training," he said, and added that the business is also modifying its computer system to emphasize chair enquiries with a specific coding and a built-in alarm system to warn dispatcher when a problem occurs.

However Stewart says he was said a rider was allocated and just didn't show up. Says the firm seemed really repentant about the event, but finds that attitude generally needs to be changed about taking trips for disabled persons. "This is the opportunity that insults me and I keep hearing it from former taxi riders and inside workers in other municipalities and here that the riders just want to make the biggest possible fares and a chair trade show is one that is slowing them down enormously," he said, Stewart's noted taxi problems, even cases where the riders have declined to take a rider because of the place they drove, will be debated at the next boarding.