“SORRY driver, I think I’ve left my face mask in the back of your taxi!”

Now there’s a sentence I didn’t bank on hearing at the start of the year.

Yet it’s become the norm today – with more and more customers coming back to grab a face mask they have accidently left behind.

Of course, it’s the law for all passengers to actually wear the face masks while on public transport, including in taxis. Although Glasgow Taxi customers can relax with the reassurance they are safely separated from us drivers thanks to our partitions.

But that’s not stopped the face mask storming up the charts as one of the most left behind items of 2020.

Even when they have been worn in taxis, they are often taken off at the end of a journey and dropped – accidentally or deliberately, who knows.

It’s not just in taxis, you see these face masks scattered on the streets, discarded in car parks and abandoned outside shops, bars and restaurants.

Passengers either realise immediately and come back for them before we have driven away – or leave it to us to dispose of them.

It did make me think of some of the most common, and obscure, items which are routinely left in the back of my cab. The main and the mad offenders include: Mobile phones, cash, wallets, jackets, shopping, a TV (seriously!), a prosthetic leg (again, seriously)... and dignity!

Of course, these are just the ones we can print in a family newspaper!

It’s important to add that in the event of any such items left in the back of a taxi we will endeavour to make contact with the customer to arrange a safe return; if that’s not possible it will be handed into the police and their lost property department.

Now and again the people who have lost items don’t have a leg to stand on! Stay safe.