CARLTON Smith, aka Cabbie, sighs as he winds down the window in an attempt to wake the female passenger who's simultaneously hiccupping and nodding off in the back seat.
With 30-plus years under his belt as a taxi driver, Cabbie knows the signs of a passenger on the brink of losing their night's consumption all through his cab, and this one's meeting the criteria.
The cold wind does the trick and when she exits, she leaves his cab interior intact.
Close call but it's not always like that.
"It's usually the young girls because they drink all that lolly water," he tells me in his warm, easy-going manner. "Although one night a young guy let fly and it went straight between the seats into the front."
But it's not only vomit cab drivers have to contend with. "One guy gets in and says, 'Oh what a nice clean car you've got here... oh, and I've got diarrhoea too'," he says rolling his eyes and chuckling at the memory.
Welcome to a night in the life of a taxi driver. But it's not all about soiling (a fee of $100 applies for this) and, in fact, his cab is in impeccable condition - every day in the life a a cab driver can be quite different.
"I like meeting people and chatting to them," Carlton says as he heads to Pak'n Save and picks up a young lady called Michelle.
After introductions she points out she has just completed paperwork to become a taxi driver. Unfortunately for the duration of her ride the nocturnal side of the job is the topic.
"So, you still want to become a taxi driver?"
Undeterred, she says she does.
It's a 15 minute wait before the GPS system signals a man named Viv needs a lift from Whangarei Hospital to Mairtown.
"Now, Viv is a cancer patient," Cabbie explains on the way. "A lovely guy but he has no family here."
"How you going, Viv?" he calls jovially to the elderly man slowly making his way to the car.
The man got the time wrong time for his hospital appointment and needed to return the next day. They have a chuckle together as Cabbie puts Viv's walker in the boot before helping him into the passenger side. After good-humoured bickering about the best route to his unit they toss a coin, at Viv's insistence, as to who keeps the change.
"You have to change hats a lot," Cabbie says as he backs out the drive after making sure Viv had his keys. "One time, in the matter of an hour, I had three difference personalities - screechy girls, elderly, to a middle-aged couple. And the girls seem to be getting worse, I'm afraid.
"They fight over boyfriends and they're texting all the time. They're texting each other saying 'Shall we meet here, shall we meet there?' and I'm saying 'Where do you want to go girls?"'
Cabbie, who gained his nickname through lineout calls during a long affiliation with Hora Hora rugby club, has been in the industry off and on since 1981. He began driving cabs by filling in for his father, a local cab driver, before taking over from him.
In 1995 he formed Carlton Cabs which he ran with a fleet of 16 cars for two years before the company became part of Kiwi Cabs.
Averaging 1000km a week, his work day begins at 8am, usually ends at 7pm, and includes most all-nighters on Friday and Saturday, with time off during those days.
Drivers can work 70 hours a week but must have a half hour break every six hours, or an hour's break every 12.
They must also undergo area knowledge tests and street whereabouts - the latter of which there were only about 500 in Cabbie's early days as a driver.
But then things were a lot different back then.
"I always remember, when I first started, all the old guys would tell me stories about when they drove in the 1960s. Kamo Taxis had a rank outside a bar which closed at 6pm, as they did back then. All the drivers used to have a drink there. They'd be sitting there and a guy would yell out 'are you ready to go?' and they'd say 'I'll just finish my beer'. The local ministry of transport guy would be drinking with them too and would say 'you can take me home next'.
"One guy said he had a bank robber one day and this guy runs out of the bank and hops in the car. Back then it was all done over an RT system so, as he was driving this bank robber, they're both sitting there listening to the police. The driver says 'I think you should get out' so he reaches into this brown bag, pulls out a note and runs off. The police took the note as evidence."
Cabbie's full of the yarns and he's on a roll:
"One guy had a lady who was having a heart attack. She didn't believe in calling an ambulance so called a taxi to take her to the hospital. He got halfway there and she died. He got to the hospital and nobody wanted her so took her to the police station and they didn't want her either so he took her back and they eventually got her out at the morgue.
"Another time, a driver had a woman giving birth and all the drivers back at the rank heard the details over the RT system and were grateful it wasn't them."
These days the RT has been replaced with a GPS system: When the customer orders a cab, the call goes through to the North Shore, with their name and address typed into the system and appearing on the screen of the nearest cab. The system keeps track of where all the cabs are. However, it still can get pretty competitive amongst the drivers.
As far as crime goes, Cabbie's been fairy lucky. There was the night a guy jumped into his van and grabbed his collar but he reacted in self defence and knocked him out.
Then there's the other extreme with PDA (public displays of affection).
"Oh god, I hear slurping and all sorts going on in the back seat."
And not everyone can contain themselves until they get into a cab: "We see people getting it on all over the show."
Cabbie's busiest time as a driver was during the refinery expansion in the 1980s.
"You had 3500 single men in town. Some days there'd be a strike and town would be full of guys and you'd be flat-stick."
So have things slowed down during the recession?
"Actually people seem to be catching taxis more. They can't afford cars but still need to get somewhere and you can't carry all your shopping on a bus. Then there's Saturday night, after midnight it goes mad."
"The elderly make up a good percentage of our customers because many don't have cars and they get a half-priced fare."