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Poll: How much do you tip a cab driver? Vancouverites weigh in

Ever had to make that snap decision? Here's what others suggest.
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How much should you tip a taxi cab?

Tipping is an uncertain social norm in Canada.

While it's a common practice in many service industry roles, like waitresses, barbers and cab drivers, a common amount fluctuates.

With taxi cabs, there's a rush to pay at your destination, and having to decide on a tip amount can be an awkward moment of pressure. So Vancouver Is Awesome asked readers what they usually add to their fare when they're paying for good service. 

Like a previous poll we ran about tips at restaurants, there was no clear winner here.

The number one answer was 10 per cent or less, with around a third of the local vote. While the overall vote was similar, people outside of Vancouver did bring that percentage down a bit.

In second place is 15 per cent, which is also a common choice at restaurants. More than a quarter of people chose this option. In this case it seems Vancouverites aren't quite as generous as people outside the city, as there's a nearly 2 per cent difference between the overall and local polls.

But that gets flipped again when looking at third place. Just under 20 per cent of Vancouverites chose tips of 20 per cent or more. However, at the same time, the overall numbers drop down to 16.8 per cent.

Many people choose not to tip at all. More than 13 per cent of locals say they wouldn't tip a cab driver for good service, or 54 of the 402 voters. This is also where there's the biggest discrepancy between locals and the overall vote, with people living outside of Vancouver pushing the 'no tip' option to more than 16.5 per cent.

Vancouver Is Awesome polled 738  readers and asked the question: How much do you usually tip a cab for good service? Here's how that broke down.

The poll ran from 8/28/2022 to 9/3/2022. Of the 738 votes, we can determine that 402 are from within the community. The full results are as follows:

Nothing 13.43 % local, 16.53 % total    
10 per cent or less 33.08 % local, 31.71 % total    
15 per cent 26.62 % local, 28.32 % total    
18 per cent 7.46 % local, 6.64 % total    
20 per cent or more 19.40 % local, 16.80 % total    
  Local   Total

Results are based on an online study of adult Vancouver Is Awesome readers that are located in Vancouver. The margin of error - which measures sample variability - is +/- 3.61%, 19 times out of 20.

Vancouver Is Awesome uses a variety of techniques to capture data, detect and prevent fraudulent votes, detect and prevent robots, and filter out non-local and duplicate votes.