Travis Bickle (DeNiro) in Movie Taxi Driver
Funny, Incredible, dangerous, one of the kind cab / taxi rides. Stories you want to share? Please write about it here.
.... and they don't have to be epic stories like that one of Travis Bickle in movie Taxi Driver
2 ladies got in my cab in Downtown of Saint Pete, it was around 10:30 PM and said
ReplyDeleteLadies: take us to the beach
ME: no problem, which beach? what place you wish to go to ladies?
them: nearest beach
ME: do you want to go to the beach in Downtown by the Pier?
Them: no, we want to go to the beach by Gulf of Mexico.
ME:Really? why do you want to go to the beach in middle of the night?
THEM: we came here from San Francisco California and Bismarck, North Dakota and we heard that you guys have beautiful beaches in Saint Pete.
ME: sure we do, but you wont be able to see anything and fare will be about $25
THEM: ahhhh!! we know that, -we just want to wet our feet in Gulf of Mexico and grab some white sand , so we can have bragging rights, "we have been there and we have done that",
ME: thats fine with me,- I'll take you to Pass-a-Grill, beach,- the area is safe and there are couple restaurants open until late.
THEM: ahh no, we don't want to go to restaurant, we just want to wet our feet in Gulf and grab some sand, so it will be round trip with some waiting time.
ME: YeeSSSS Madam !! we are on the way, just please let me know on the way if I can make your trip more comfortable.
Any of you out there cab drivers was offered sex for a fare?
ReplyDeleteHere is a story
"Busty passenger offers sex in return for not paying $5 cab fare"
http://ride.asiaone.com/news/general/story/busty-passenger-offers-sex-return-not-paying-5-cab-fare
There are a lot of crazy people out there, including ladies who think that having sex with cab driver is something they have to try at least once in their lifetime, same like having sex in the back of the car, on the beach or in elevator..
DeleteStrangely, some of them feel like they are on a date and a cab driver has same desires like them, but in reality, most cab drivers are in "money making mode" while working and feel dazzled in this kind of situations.
Sunscreen Film Festival | St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Tampa »
ReplyDeleteI can not say I have been at the festival or I have seen any movies showed there, but I was lucky enough to meet four guys involved in making one of the movies, its name is Silent But Deadly - Directed by: Jason Lockhart
I picked them from Tyrone Mall and took them to Marriot Downtown Saint Pete.
Very nice people,- besides being polite and well behaved they tipped me $9 on $18 trip for total of $27.
Today I had record low credit card run from 323 ave. N, Saint Petersburg to Save A Lot on 7 and 9 north, for whole $3.40, no tip and passengers refused to pay $1 surcharge for credit card payment..
ReplyDelete......and even their debit card was approved by the square................
You know how sometimes you get those fares coming out of Publix, Walmart ow Winn Dixie with 2 carts of shopping, 3 kids 2 fat ass ladies and they are ready to get in your cab (sedan cab).
ReplyDeleteWhen you tell them that they need minivan cab, because its illegal to transport 5 passengers in regular taxi cab with only 4 sit belts, then they try to convince you to do it anyway, by saying
"Ohhh, we live few blocks down the street" like trying to tell me that there is very slim risk that I might get pulled over by Cops or we get involved in accident?
They don't understand simple principles of taxi driving and how taxi drivers make money.... they think, we as a cab drivers are some kind of public servants paid hourly or something.
I never try to educate them about the subject, but if same party told me that they want to go on 40 - 50 miles trip to Tampa or Sarasota, probably I would try to squeeze them like sardines in my small taxi cab and take them there.
you have to remember , half of our clientele has a half a brain, no education, no moral standards, no positive row models to follow and they think, that you as a taxi driver in st. petersburg with your broken / heavily accented English are notch lower on social ladder than them. so they try to prove, who is a boss on $4.00 cab ride
DeleteI feel sorry for them more often than I get upset, but in general its pretty unpleasant experience to deal with folks from south side of Saint Pete, unless you have the way to talk with them and distract their minds from BS it might be brewing in their heads.......
Anyway, after being robbed at gunpoint on the South side, verbally abused,giving free rides to runners, I just try to keep away from South Side of Saint Petersburg as far as possible,-I simply don't have patience for them, let Blue Star Cab and other drivers from Independent Taxi deal with them
Kind of funny situation happened to me last night.
ReplyDeleteIt's a Sunday night, slow like hell and I get this call from one of the motels on 4th street in Saint Pete, north of 62nd Ave.
The guy says, "take me to 13 and 21 south", which is +$20 ride, so as not to raise guys suspicion, I asked him politely " how much you usually pay for this ride Sir??" , but at same time I could smell heavy odor of marijuana, so, I knew, the guy just smoked the joint and was stoned, but I didn't know how far, at least not at that time.
His reply was, "I usually pay $25" which was right answer to me.
Distracted by whole situation, I started to drive south on 4th street and after may be 1.5 mile of driving I realized that my meter was off, so I knew I wont be able to get my full fare out this guy and I offered him to take him to his destination for $22 flat rate, if he pays me upfront, which he did.
All happy on good deal, with stoned passenger in the back of my cab I am heading south to the hood completely relaxed.
He didn't even mind, that we missed his street and we had to go around the block to get to his house.
What happened next, was funniest example on how forgetful people can be after smoking weed,- the guy simply forgot that he already paid me and he pulled handful of money and he tried to pay me again....
..so did you take the money? don't tell me you didn't....
DeleteThere Is More to Being a Taxi Driver than Just Driving
DeleteI have been a cab driver for the past 5 years. Before that, I was in software development and was lucky enough to have made enough money so I could pretty much retire from working with the big corporations and just do a bit of freelancing. The trouble is, I’m a people person and sitting in front of a computer all day staring at a screen just wasn’t “floating my boat” anymore.
One day, I happened across an ad in the newspaper asking for taxi drivers for a local Seattle firm. I had a clean driving license and have never been in trouble with the cops so I decided to apply. I haven’t looked back since! In fact, this is one of the most rewarding jobs I’ve ever had. Sure, I don’t do it full-time, the pay isn’t that great but, what I do get is a sense of satisfaction that my customers are not just people who get in a car and are taken from A-B.
Of course, that’s the reason everyone takes a cab right? But, what about all those poor souls out there that have got problems that no-one wants to listen to or, they haven’t got anyone they can confide in? The answer is the all listening cabbie. I could fill pages with the conversations I’ve had over the years but, there is one that sticks in my mind.
A young lady got into my cab late at night with a friend. I dropped the first friend off and was then asked to drop the second off a few blocks away. The minute she was alone, there were floods of tears and incoherent sentences like “it was my fault….” “I don’t know why it happened….”
When I came to a stop at her home I turned to her and said “I’m sorry Ma’am I didn’t get any of what you were saying”. Anyhow, it turned out that her boyfriend had left her, she had lost her job and loads of her friends had turned their backs on her. Talk about a tough break!
The whole point about me telling you this is that by the time she was ready to pay her fare and go indoors, she had a smile on her face and, that’s why I think that being a taxi driver in Seattle isn’t just about driving a cab!
JC
Just another day of work driving a cab in NYC.
ReplyDeleteI’ve come across all sorts of people during my time as a taxi driver. In fact, that’s one of the things I like most about my chosen career, you just never know who you’re going to get next. Sure, you do get the odd customer now and then that you would rather not take to their destination, (I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve had to clean vomit off the back seat) and with no tip!
However, there are times during my days as I wander the streets when outside influences just make me want to blow my stack! On one such hot, humid and VERY busy shift I realized my taxi was low on fuel. So much so, that it was probably running on fumes alone. Filling up wasn’t a choice anymore, it had to be done.
So, I pull into my usual garage and low and behold it seems like the rest of New York has had the exact same idea. After deciding which line of cars to wait behind, I then start to sweat on how long it’s going to take to reach the pump and if my car will make it. Thankfully the line moved up pretty quickly and I was next.
Now, I’m sure you’re all going to relate to this and it’s not sexist that the person in front happened to be a woman; men are just as bad at taking their time in these situations. So, she gets in her car, great I think to myself, I’ll be back on the road and earning some more money in no time. Wrong! First of all, there’s the mirror check. Not to see if there is a huge line behind her, this action was to make sure the make-up was intact and the hair looked just so.
OK, so now she’s happy with the look and puts her seatbelt on. The excitement was too much as I edged just a little bit closer. Then, as she goes to start to the car, she discovers the keys are not there. Ah, must be in the handbag! I never will understand handbags; it seems
to take a lifetime to find anything in them.
Those ever elusive keys were not found until everything had been tipped out! Great I think (again), now we’re ready. Wrong again! No, we had to do just another check in the mirror and to my total frustration it’s decided the lipstick isn’t right. I’m sorry to say (and I am a placid personality) that I’d had enough! The horn was blown, the arms were waving around and finally with a flick of her hair, this ever so frustrating woman pulled away without what seemed to me, a care in the world.
I did manage to get the fuel I needed but, I was left wondering for the rest of the day just how much money I’d lost because this woman had no sense of urgency.