Infant was one of the 51,239 ‘items’ recovered from Dubai taxis in 2014

DUBAI // They’re a forgetful lot, taxi passengers.

In the past year they’ve got out of cabs and left behind more than half a million dirhams worth of gold and jewellery, nearly Dh300,000 in cash, 5,313 mobile phones – and a baby.

Yes, a baby. The forgetful family had been to Dubai Mall and left the child in the taxi when they returned to their hotel.

They were later reunited.

The baby was by far the most bizarre item returned by taxi drivers last year, but it was by no means the only one, the Roads and Transport Authority in Dubai reported.

Among 51,239 objects recovered were 2,983 suitcases, 1,390 wallets, 685 passports, 511 keys, 321 cameras, 303 laptops, 301 pairs of glasses, 292 items of designer clothing, 267 official documents and “unidentified precious items” worth $100,000.

Then there was the jewellery, phones, US$57,230 (Dh210,202) and €6,000 (Dh24,908).

“Passengers are urged to keep their taxi receipts as they facilitate locating their lost items quickly,” said Ahmed Mahboob, director of customer service at the RTA.

Taxi drivers are rewarded with cash prizes of between Dh2,000 and Dh10,000 according to their record on honesty, safety, customer complaints, mystery-shopper results, crashes, traffic fines and black points.

Rewarding good drivers inspires others and reduces offences and accidents, the RTA said.

Some big-ticket items have been returned by honest cabbies, such as diamonds worth Dh1.2 million, cash and expensive watches forgotten by a customer and returned by a Bangladeshi taxi driver in 2013.

In September 2012, a Pakistani cabbie found 123,700 Saudi riyals and gold jewellery, and handed them to police.

The RTA said more than 2.6 million phone calls were handled by its call centre last year.

rtalwar@thenational.ae