More taxi trouble

These are strange times to be a passenger in a taxi.

During the last month, several reports of cab drivers refusing to transport passengers have made headlines. Among their reasons for turning down a fare: travelers were carrying alcohol, had a seeing-eye dog, or were transgendered (all of which apparently offended the religious sensibilities of the drivers). Here’s a succinct summary of the problem.

But after asking readers of this site to share their taxi experiences, I’m convinced that the being turned down by a cab driver isn’t that bad.

Getting a ride — now there’s trouble.

Nora Daly hailed a cab at the airport in Chicago a few years ago, and barely survived the trip.

“The driver drove like a madman — fast, slow, and tailgating,” she recalled. “He also drove us 25 miles out of the way and then demanded double the amount on the meter. When my administrator refused to pay, he grabbed her computer bag and locked her suitcase in the taxi.”

But Daly’s assistant had a firm hold on the bag, and was thrown to the ground, leaving her with a serious concussion. The police were eventually called and the driver was arrested. Strangely, the district attorney has yet to press charges.

Some taxi drivers care as much about their cabs as they do their religious beliefs. But the same concerns don’t necessarily extend to their passengers.

In Kansas City, Kathleen Vigil’s taxi was stopped at red light when it started to roll backwards. “I yelled at the driver to stop,” she remembered. “The car behind us began honking his horn. However, the taxi driver was foreign and I’m not sure he understood me. He was also quite preoccupied with his cell phone and an address book, and his conversation was noisy and heated.”

Did the driver check his passenger for injuries after the collision? Nope.

“I was the last of the taxi driver’s concerns. He got out and assessed the damage to the other car. Once back, he asked me to confirm that the driver behind us was in the wrong, and agreed to cut my taxi bill in half if I would explain to the police that this ‘mishap’ was the other guy’s fault,” she said.

In fact, many readers reported that their cabbies drove as if they were exempt from traffic rules.

Dave Arnsdorf shared a cab with his neighbor from the Detroit airport recently. It was snowing, and the driver had a lead foot.

“We kept asking him to slow down,” he wrote. “He would not talk to us at all. He may not have spoken English. Finally, while trying to pass a truck in the left lane, he lost control, we spun around 540 degrees and ended up pointing backwards in the median.”

Both passengers implored the driver to slow down, but he ignored them, even after the close call.

“I stopped taking cabs after that,” Arnsdorf said.

Reader Rachel Bray-Stiles says she feels the same way after surviving a cab ride to the Biltmore Hotel in Miami a few years ago. “Our cab driver began drag racing with a 19-year old kid without a license, and before we could even say anything, we plowed into a retaining wall,” she remembered.

She and another passenger woke up in the hospital with head injuries and broken bones.

The cab driver, who did not have a driver’s license, returned to Haiti and the crunched car “somehow disappeared when authorities went to retrieve it for evidence,” she said.

Maybe there’s something to be said for taking the bus.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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