A mother who gave birth to her daughter in the back of a taxi going at 40mph claimed she was left shocked when the taxi firm sent her a cleaning bill for £60.
Farah Cacanindin, 26, had just left the hospital for a routine examination for her pregnancy when she unexpectantly went into labour on the taxi trip home in Buckinghamshire.
A newspaper outlet reported that astonishingly, Ms Cacanindin was able to deliver her baby Naia herself while the taxi was still moving.
The cab driver called ahead to Stoke Mandeville Hospital to warn staff they were coming before dropping her off.
Baby Naia, bound in her mother’s jacket after she was born, was safely looked after when they arrived and the pair were allowed to return home. However, Ms Cacanindin claimed she was stunned when she was sent a £90 bill from Arrow Taxis to her home in High Wycombe, £30 for the journey to the hospital and £60 to clean up the mess.
She said she appreciated there had been a mess in the back of the taxi, but that it was an outrageous thing to do when she’d just gone through an unexpected delivery.
Ms Cacanindin said that she understood that she did make a mess but it was a tad cheeky to have charged her.
She said it was the quickest delivery ever, and that her waters broke five minutes into the journey. The driver asked if she wanted him to pull over but she said to keep going as she believed she would make it before the baby was born.
She added that she can still see the car her daughter was born in at the cab company just down the road from her home.
Arrow Taxis has been contacted for comment.
But why should the taxi company have to pay for the cleaning? It’s not cheeky for the company to charge for this, but it is cheeky for Ms Cacanindin not to pay and then run to the press as if the company had done something wrong.
Perhaps she should ask the hospital to pay the bill as they mistakenly discharged her home when evidently she shouldn’t have been.
It was a taxi, not an ambulance, and the cab driver would have had to take the car off the road for cleaning and probably have lost earnings.
The taxi company are in the right. If it was anyone else who made a mess they would be expected to pay, and if she refuses and gets away with it, then taxis might start refusing to take women in labour and then where would we be?
This cabbie will be off the road and won’t be able to take any more customers until it’s cleaned and sanitised. Is this woman actually expecting the taxi driver to lose his entire income because she doesn’t want to pay to clean up the mess?
No one’s saying that she did it on purpose, of course, she didn’t, or that it was her fault, it wasn’t, but it is her responsibility.
What this lady should be doing is be grateful for the safe delivery of her baby, but instead she’s whined about it with not a thought about the cab driver or his loss of wages.
I wish all the best to the new mother, but you still have to pay because you can’t expect the cab company to relish your happiness.
It’s pretty standard practice these days for anyone soiling the inside of a taxi for whatever reason because the driver will lose money by not being able to work while his car is being brought back to a functional standard and that’s without the expense of cleaning it, and most people would have been happy to pay the fee without having to bleat to the media for sympathy.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 