The Victorian Taxi Association has apologised for linking their business to Remembrance Day.
On Wednesday, the YourTaxis Twitter account posted, “Rememberance [sic] Day, 600,000 taxi trips are taken by war veterans for treatment purposes. Lest We Forget. #YourTaxis”
Backlash was immediate, with users criticising the company for hijacking the day of mourning, and for misspelling the word “remembrance”.
• I changed my mind about Uber
• Angry taxi user unleash
• Qld open to Uber reform
“Lest We Forget spellcheck:Remembrance Day @yourtaxis. And using it in your PR campaign is not cool,” wrote one Twitter user.
The Tweet was removed by the account and Victorian Taxis Association released an apology statement later on Wednesday.
In the statement, the organisation apologised “unreservedly for a tweet sent on behalf of the #YourTaxis campaign that it does not believe displayed the appropriate level of respect to Australian servicemen and women and their families.”
Relinquishing some of the blame, the statement outlined that the Tweet had been composed by “an external supplier”, although it should have been “vetoed” internally.
In a final, unfortunate error, a short apology Tweet from the YourTaxis account again misspelled the word “remembrance”, generating further ire.
“It’s ‘Remembrance’, not ‘Rememberence’. If you can’t even get that right, there’s no hope for you,” wrote a user.
The debacle capped off a bad week for the Victorian Taxis Association, which setup the #YourTaxis hashtag and account in an attempt to connect with the public as a growing number of users turn to the ride-sharing app, Uber.
However, a call to invite users to share their taxi stories via the hashtag #YourTaxis was quickly hijacked with stories of law-flouting drivers, physical and verbal abuse.
“Top effort trying to hijack #RemembranceDay… I eagerly await your poorly themed #AnzacDay tweet next year,” wrote another.
.@YourTaxis just keeps digging that grave the entire cab industry will inevitably end up in. #YourTaxis pic.twitter.com/hoe2YvJkqc
— Jamie Oliver-Twist (@Jamus__) November 11, 2015
Texting the drivers ID number to your mate because literally all of us have had been made to feel unsafe #yourtaxis — Jessica Alice (@jessica_alice_) November 10, 2015
Every single woman I know had a negative/scary story about taxi drivers. #yourtaxis — ameliajdowd (@ameliadowd) November 9, 2015
#YourTaxis That time I had to punch my way out of a cab because the driver was trying to sexually assault me. — Amy Gray (@_AmyGray_) November 9, 2015
Live News
