Tales from the Taxi ?

[jagman]

Hello Avalon. I'm thinking about starting this new thread called( Tales from the Taxi ). I'm driving a Taxi right now to pay the bills while I work on my degree. It's amazing all the wild stories you hear driving a cab and the crazy stuff you see day to day in the taxi. I just wanted to get some feedback on this idea. Sorry mods if I posted this in the wrong place.

[RogueEllis]

I'd love to hear some of your stories.

[jagman]

I Just dropped a lady off at a motel she invited me in. She told me her husband beats her and she's looking for a new old man. She told me to come by anytime. I think she's wanting some sex lol. I took her number because she offered it, I didn't want to appear rude.

[Franny]

Sure jagman, bring 'em on!

[jagman]

Taxi drivers get more confessions than priests lol at least that's what I have experienced so far.I picked a guy up yesterday who was on crutches.he said the police attacked him and hit him with a taser, blowing a hole in his foot. He told me he just got out of jail and his girlfriend just abandoned him at the autoparts store. So he needed a ride 12 miles out of town. He looks over at me during the ride and said that he was done with women he tried to give me his number and he told me he's a great cook and likes cleaning house. I'm pretty sure this dude was hitting on me.lol

[waves]

You know you have a best selling book in the making, don't you?

[RogueEllis]

This reminds me of a Bob's Burger's episode. You should be a television screen writer.

[TomKat]

I drove a cab for a year. Most of my customers were drunks who'd lost their driving licence, and prostitutes or pimps, who didn't own cars. I was young and hoping for a crash course in life, and I saw a lot. I got propositioned by a local newspaper columnist (male) and also a minor Country star named Judy (not Loretta) Lynn. I gave a ride to jazz great Chuck Mangione, who stank of body odor. A nice customer told me he'd got cheated of $100 by a prostitute, so I took him to a new brothel I knew of from the prostitutes, for which he was extremely grateful. Pretty good experience for a 22-year old :-)

[ichingcarpenter]

I drove a taxi in San Luis Obispo or as its called locally SLO. Once drove an Air Force pilot who had just come back from Iraq during the war and said that he saw besides war horrors something about they, the US, were searching for some ancient stuff that went beyond normal and bordered on paranormal artifacts. He said it was top secret and couldn't reveal much more. Once drove a member of the Hearst family up the coast from the slo airport to right before the Hearst castle to one of their homes She had been living in south africa for many years. It wasn't patty but a close relative.

It was an interesting job with good tips but I didn't like the long hours and late, late nights. Yes driving a taxi is like a confessional booth.

[Cara]

This is a great thread to read, thank you!

I used to travel internationally a great deal for work. Some of the moments I remember most vividly are the conversations I had with taxi drivers or the experiences I had in taxis.

Here are some of the more interesting ones!

From Australia:

• In Melbourne, I was driven to the airport one time by an Iraqi who was a refugee from the Bush I bombing campaign on Iraq. He had lost his family in the bombing.
• In Hobart, Tasmania, a taxi driver from Eritrea took me on one of my journeys. He explained that the Australian government had planned to settle most refugees with others of their nationality. He said there was quite a community of Eritreans living in Tasmania.
• In Sydney, I was driven to a meeting by a neurosurgeon from Bosnia. Because he could not afford the fees to retake his exams in Australia, he was driving a taxi to support his family.

~~~

In Beijing, China I was driven to the airport by a taxi driver at the end of his shift. He was falling asleep at the wheel from exhaustion and still driving at 120 km/hour on the new fast expressway to the airport. Apparently many of the drivers drive extra hours beyond the end of their already long shifts just to make ends meet and so they are of course exhausted.

I called a friend in Hong Kong about what to do, he said to keep shouting at the driver to keep him awake. Well I am not the shouting type, so I kept tapping him on the shoulder :-). Never have I been so relieved to arrive anywhere in my life!

~~~

Again in Beijing, I took a taxi from the hotel I was staying to an event I was presenting at. The taxi driver dropped me off in what felt like the busiest intersection in the world. I could not find the event or any sign of it. Eventually I went into the closest building and with my printout of the location and some mime, I managed to secure the help of a security guard. He walked me through a winding and dark underground passage (during which time I wondered if I was being marched to some official who would question what this foreigner was doing)... eventually we ended up out the other side of the block at the entrance to the event.

~~~

In Paris one time, a taxi driver taking me from Parc Asterix to the airport was astonished that there were no winter sports (of note) in South Africa and I struggled to explain in my poor French that there was little to no snow!

~~~

In Dubai, many of the taxi drivers are from Pakistan or India and they are great fans of cricket. So one can always have a conversation about the latest match or how the team is doing.

One taxi driver from Pakistan had South African cricketer Hashim Amla as his hero and proceeded to show me fan photos of the guy on his phone... followed by photos of his lovely wife and children :-).

Another Pakistani taxi driver decided to explain “the way of Islam” to me, insisting that I would be a model Muslim wife based on his interpretation of my description of my life in Dubai. A truer dogmatic believer I have never encountered.

~~~

The final story is actually my husband’s. He was in the USA for a snowboarding trip and was flying via New York JFK from Colorado back home. He had elected to stay over in New York and ordered an airport transfer taxi for 3 am to take him to the airport. When the guy arrived, he was not expecting there would be a snowboard as luggage. Apparently it had to be pre-booked and even though there was space in the van and my husband was happy to pay the extra charge, the driver would not accept this.

It ended with the driver saying “forget you, man, forget you” and driving off!... And my husband had to rush to Penn Station to make his way to the airport (snowboard in tow) :-)

[Bill Ryan]

Two fun taxi stories from yours truly.

Long ago, in my hitchhiking days, I was trying to get to Scotland from Bristol, down in SW England. That's about 350 miles or so. I was only by the side of the road for a few minutes, and a black cab pulled over. Just like the ones you see in movies of London.

I told the driver I didn't want a taxi, I was just hitchhiking. But he said that he knew that. He told me he'd just taken a fare from Glasgow to Bristol — and was super-happy about it. So he just told me to jump in the back and he'd take me all the way to Glasgow — as long as I bought him an egg sandwich and a cup of tea when we crossed the border at Gretna Green.

And an even better story. I was in Mombasa, Kenya, taking a taxi to the airport to catch my flight back home. The highway to the airport was a dual carriageway (with a grassy central divider), and was meant to be a fast road. I just had enough time to make my flight.

But then, about two miles from the airport, there was a roundabout (a circle). A large truck had overturned right there, and the road was closed. All the airport traffic was logjammed and hopelessly blocked.

Now, the taxi driver was a Sikh: a traditional warrior caste. He looked over the situation, announced NO PROBLEM, bumped over the central reservation, sped along the wrong side of the highway against all the scattering oncoming traffic, went the wrong way round the closed roundabout, and reached the airport, still on the wrong side of the road, two minutes later.

I was so impressed I gave him a huge tip. And then, right on the airport terminal steps, he rolled out his prayer mat and gave thanks to Allah that we were all safe.

[Rosemarie]

I remember seeing a show somewhere called the taxicabs confessions or something liked that decades ago. Went looking in youtube and found some others
Here some samples.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=F7h0EaabCwc

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=DZe_Aadj0WA

[TomKat]

It was raining hard in Frisco, I needed one more fare to make my night... :-)

https://youtu.be/4qYU9b5OF8M