So Much BS And For What

Obviously from the title of this blog I drive a taxi. Yeah, I know, public perception of cab drivers is not the most favorable thing on the planet and yes, I know that some of it is deserved. But that does not mean that all cab drivers are jerks, or that all cab drivers are trying to rip people off. Actually it is the opposite. Most cab drivers are honest and come to work everyday like everyone else to just make a living. But unlike most others, when cab drivers come to work they are subjected to a myriad of random (hence the name of this blog) conditions, people, places and things and do so at their own peril.

Case(s) in point ….

A couple of weeks back on a Friday night shift, after driving all night I was jumped in my cab by four little assholes, had a gun put to my head and my money and cell phone taken from me. Does that happen to the average person when they go to work? No, it doesn’t.

About two weeks before that on my way into downtown Boston, I had two crackheads literally open the doors of the cab while going about 25 miles per hour and jump out. Why? Because they didn’t want to pay. Unluckily for them the cops were already on the way as I had called them with the two in the cab because I knew they didn’t want to pay. So as they bailed out of the cab the cops came around the corner, saw the whole thing and arrested them. Ummm, not for not paying me but because of possession of crack cocaine.

Ask any cab driver what happens to them on a daily basis and they can all give you stories like these and much more. Truth is cab drivers hold a job that is consistently ranked in the top twenty most dangerous jobs every year right behind Policemen and Firemen. (At least the cops can shoot back.) Yet we show up everyday and go out into the streets to deal with the general public, traffic and random events, never knowing if we are going to go home at the end of the day.

I sure thought I was a dead man a few weeks ago. To be totally honest, when it happened I wasn’t afraid in the way you might think. I thought for sure they were going to kill me and all I could think of was my kids and my wife. What their lives would be like because of my death. It was very surreal but all I could think of was them and not me. I just handed over everything I had and hoped for the best. Luckily they let me live.

I will be going back out onto the roads tonight just before all the bars close and people need to get home. I am a little more cautious than I was a few weeks ago but the bottom line is my kids like eating and having a roof over their heads and in this economy finding a new job is not easy.

The robbers took more than my money. They took a little of me and they put my family into financial hardship but I will be out there tonight and I will pick up the rude drunks, people with “issues”, quarreling lovers, and everyone else that needs to get home in the middle of the night. And I will do it with a smile and with humor. And I hope that nobody pulls out a gun again.

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• Arrest made in Memphis cab driver’s shooting (commercialappeal.com)
• Now cab drivers in NYC are getting stabbed ‘cuz they’re Muslim (shortformblog.com)