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How students can be smart and safe during Freshers’ Week!

September 7, 2016

Thousands of students up and down the country are about to start university and move away from home for the first time. There will be lots of fun social events and activities going on to help them meet new friends and explore their new locations – and often these will involve alcohol.

While we don’t want to sound like a killjoy, here at insureTAXI we know that taxi drivers regularly have to deal with passengers who have drunk too much on a night out. Recently we carried out research which revealed the overwhelming majority of taxi drivers (77 per cent) have picked up passengers – both male and female – who can’t remember or communicate where they’re going due to consuming too much alcohol, while half of drivers have had passengers pass out completely in the back seat.

Nearly 60 per cent of drivers have had to deal with passengers vomiting in their cabs, over half (57 per cent) have had to take passengers to hospital and 1 in 10 has even had to perform first aid on a passenger.

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It’s an exciting time for students about to start university this month, but we’re urging them to think safe and smart when it comes to getting home – especially during their universities’ Freshers’ Weeks. So here are our top ten tips:

  1. Familiarise yourself with where the approved taxi ranks are in the town or city and near your students’ union
  2. Save the details of a couple of local taxi firms in your phone
  3. Remember you can only hail down public hire cabs – such as Hackney black cabs – and you must pre-book private hire cabs
  4. Download an app like Uber if it operates in your area – but make sure you’ve got money in your account to pay for it
  5. See if your university offers any transport services like night buses to help you get home safely
  6. Keep some cash to one side so you have enough to get home (as well as get a takeaway!)
  7. Wherever possible, go home with friends – and don’t leave anyone to go home on their own
  8. If you’re feeling unwell in a taxi, ask the driver to pull over – they’ll charge you if you make a mess in their cab!
  9. Never get into an unmarked car if you’ve not booked it and don’t know for sure if it is a reputable taxi
  10. Make sure you know where you’re going – make a note of your new address and what it’s near – and always get dropped off as close to your front door as possible