a taxi in Norway. I have taken en drosje several times in Norway and I can only say good things. Every drosje I rode in was clean and comfortable, and driven by very friendly immigrants. Not that every drosjesjåfør (taxi driver) in Norway is an immigrant, but certainly the majority are. I enjoyed talking with them and asking them about their historier (stories) about how they came to Norway and where they came from. Again, I will say that although det er veldig dyrt (it is very expensive) å ta en drosje (to take a taxi) in Norway, I had great experiences with drosjer.
Either I was lucky with the drosjer I took or the drosje environment has changed since I lived in Norway 4 years ago. I say this because of an article in Aftenposten online today: Oslo får taxipoliti (Oslo gets taxi police). My first thought was, hva (what)?? Ja, there is going to be an organization that monitors drosjer og drosjesjåfører. Hvorfor (why), you might ask? Based on the new regler (rules) that are about to be enforced, passasjerer (passengers) have had complaints in several different areas. The following is the list of expectations for drosjer (taken directly from the Aftenposten website):
* Sjåførkurs som avsluttes med skriftlig eksamen i regi av kommunen. Chauffeur course that concludes with a written exam produced by the municipality.
* Forbud mot å snakke i mobilen når man har passasjer i bilen. It is forbidden to talk on the phone when one has a passenger in the car.
* Røykfri og ren bil. Smoke free and clean car.
* Prisinformasjon på holde- plassene, og i taxien. Price information at the stop and in the taxi.
* Klagebehandling innen 14 dager. Complaints handled within 14 days.
* Kunden skal få beskjed hvis bilen er forsinket. The customer will receive a message if the car is late\behind schedule.
* Sjåføren skal ha godkjent uniform. The chauffeur should have an approved uniform.
The idea is å kontrollere drosjene (to control the taxis) so that they all provide basically the same tjeneste (service) for roughly samme prisen (the same price). Målet er fornøyde passasjerer (The goal is satisfied passengers).
If you have ever been i en drosje i New York, for eksempel, you would know that it would be nearly umulig (impossible) to monitor them.
Comments:
Jacek:
Hi,
Jeg snakker bare litt norsk, men jeg liker a lese dine blogg.
This is really interesting that in norwegian there are words for a taxi (en drosje) or a computer (data maskin). I thought that these english words are so popular that there aren’t national description, but I see that norwegian is different from other languages and i think that this is really cool.
But could you answer which word is more common in daily use taxi or drosjen? computer or datamaskin ?
Hilsen fra Polen
Kari:
Tusen takk for following my blog. It’s great to know that people are actually out there reading it and (hopefully) getting something out of it.
Yes, Norwegians really use ‘datamaskin’ and they use ‘drosje’ too for taxi, but I have heard them say ‘taxi’ as well. Some of these English words are becoming more and more prevalent in the Norwegian language, which is definitely a controversial topic-one which I shall address at some point.
BM:
I was just remarking the other day how hard it is to shout “drosje” compared to “taxi” when flagging down a cab.
kari:
I know, right? I think it’s the X in taxi that gives the word more strength.