Playing It Safe

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With the days getting longer, you’ll be out of the house, enjoying wine events (sans snow or cold weather) late into the evening. So I wanted to talk to you a little about cabs. Contrary to popular belief, Cincinnati does have taxi cabs and they do serve more than just our airport. Shocking, I know.

From Flickr user Chris Isherwood via CC

FETCH is a local service, launched by C-Change, that makes calling a cab a lot easier. All you need to remember is

513-35-FETCH

Plug that into your mobile phone right this minute.

FETCH delivers immediate access to over 8 different cab companies that serve the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky region. No holding, no busy signals. You are put through to the first available cab company. You can tell them where you are and to please come get you now.

If you’ve got a smartphone, be it an Android, Blackberry, or iPhone (or anything else), there is most likely a taxi app for your phone. No kidding. Go to the iTunes store and search for “taxi.” It’s ridiculous the number of apps that are available.

On my Android-powered phone, I really like Cab4Me, which I’ve used in various cities (also now available for iPhone). Cab4Me uses your GPS or cell signal to figure out where you are, and then shows you a list of local cab companies. If you’re traveling, this is a godsend. After all, you might find yourself standing on a street corner in the Mission District of San Francisco, with a sick friend, wondering where in the world all the cabs have gone. If that happens, it’s handy to have an app that will tell you not only what the nearest cab companies are, but where the nearest taxi stand is located.

According to the Cab4Me web site:

If a cab company is found in our database, you can get additional information like available car types or payment methods. If we do not have a cab company for your area, a local web search is performed. You will always get a result. In the Favorites tab you can quickly access your favorite companies and the recent tab shows companies you recently called.

Isn’t that great? You’ll even be able to request a minivan so that you and all of your slightly tipsy friends can pile into the same cab.

Regardless of how you find a cab, just make sure you find one. It’s okay to enjoy yourself, and enjoy yourself a lot – just be safe about it.