There is nothing remotely funny about Tuesday 30 November, but several Dial-a-Cab drivers still came out with the same joke – getting the best job they’d had in some time was most definitely not funny and as an added bonus, it was snow joke! That was the night when not only did the heavens empty their shovel-loads of snow down to earth, but almost at the same time they went on to freeze it over!
   Umit Uzguner (E12) has been on DaC since 1999. On that Tuesday evening he took 4 passengers to Gatwick Airport. He told Call Sign that knowing what he knows now, even if someone offered him £1000 to do the job again in those conditions, he’d say thank you but no thanks!
   He picked up the people at the Victoria Gatwick Express terminal – very badly named for that night as the weather stopped all trains running. It was two couples that offered to share the cab between them. Knowing that the traffic was bad, Umit warned them that the fare could be as much as £200, but they still agreed knowing that there was no other way of getting there. He also said that it could take 2 – 3 hours. It ended up taking over 7 hours and he still had a long trip to get home!
   Umit decided to go via the M4 and M25 as his terminal had put out several warnings about traffic queues via the A23. In fact the M4 was clear and he reached junction 10 on the M25 after they had been going around 40 minutes. But it was there by the A3 that things suddenly got bad. In fact they just stopped with the next two junctions taking Umit around 6 hours! When he finally got past that, the road became clear but was also like a skating ring.
   "Eventually we arrived at Gatwick," Umit continued, "and I apologised for the length of time it took and for the excessive amount on the meter. They very nicely paid up and said that they felt sorry for

Victoria and was immediately surrounded by desperate passengers trying to go southwest. He turned down two Gatwick trips having heard about the possible problems on the M25 and M23. Then for reasons that even he admits he doesn’t understand, he took pity on someone who said they were desperate to get home to Brighton! Mind you, the fact that they stuffed £150 into his hand might have helped!
   "It was just after 6pm," Alan told us, "and I thought that even if the traffic was a bit slow, I’d still be back by around 10.30. Well, we reached Streatham just over 2 hours later and nothing was moving when a message came out that all motorways and A-roads around Gatwick were totally gridlocked. So I told the passenger that I couldn’t take him any further and dropped him at a local minicab office where I gave the £150 to a driver who had been on his way home. I was just happy to write off the two wasted hours and turn around. Even so, I felt rather worried, so I phoned up the minicab office the following morning at 8am to find out if my passenger had reached home ok. The dispatcher told me that his driver hadn’t yet got back! That really was snow joke…!"
   Some days later, Call Sign received a call from DaC driver Bernie Silver (G08) who had been to visit his son in Munich. He’d heard about the motorway chaos and phoned to say that all the trains there were still running on time, even though the weather was as bad as the UK.
   "If it makes you feel better," said a smug-sounding Bernie, "there were some delays at the airport while they swept snow from the runway. Then it was all back to normal…!