Unfortunately, he was picked up by a competing pedicab company, so he's still on the street. Our opinion is that he's risking more than himself or his passengers; he's risking the security of the pedicab industry in Denver. We can't tell our competitor who to rent to, but we still get numerous complaints from drivers -- not just our own.
We tried for several months to work with this driver -- to coach him, talk with him, mold him, penalize him. We gave him several warnings. We'd tell him to stop certain risky behaviors, then would see him doing exactly what we had just told him not to do. One of his favorite activities was to corner on 2 wheels -- which is how we suspect he broke so many spokes. Now he seems to be more reckless than ever.
Many of our senior drivers tried to work with him as well. They tried giving him advice, letting him know when he was out of line, warned him about unsafe driving. Unfortunately, that didn't work either.
By the way, our drivers rent pedicabs from us; they are NOT our employees. We can't "fire" someone. We do, however, have pedicabs. Sometimes our only option is to terminate someone's rental privileges. And we do consider the ability to rent a pedicab from us a privilege.
Our lesson in this? (because I always try to look for what we can learn) Penalize early. Talk is cheap. Money talks the loudest. If someone can't follow the rules -- rules that are set up for the benefit of everyone -- they can't rent from us. Some people aren't coachable. The sooner you figure that out, the better.
