Once upon a time ..

September 2, 2010
posted by Jay Baraich at

So, Mr. President was here to mess up traffic in NYC and making it harder for people like myself to earn their living, Midtown east was a big mess on past Wednesday due to street closures. I tried to stay away from east side but every time I managed to get out of that traffic mess on east side, next fare had taken me right back in midst of that mess.

I was cursing down on 7th Avenue in hope to stay away from east side and spotted two men hailing for cab on corner of west 48th street, in front of Lace Gentlemen's Club, they were tourists from U.K "hello! where are we going?" I asked them and could not get their destination due to their accent, I asked them again and all I could understand was 2nd avenue and east 46th street, good enough for me.

If I have to categorized my best fares, tourists are almost always are amongst my best fares.

But these two guys were acting weird, I turned on West 48th street from 7th avenue to go towards east side, they tried to shout at every single girl on that street, throwing sexual remarks towards them, which again was fine with me, ride itself turned out not that bad as 48th street was clear, we made it to 2nd avenue in about 8 minutes.

Upon turning south on 2nd Avenue, I asked them the name of the place they were going to, "Don Veitia" they told me and then asked me "How far are we?",that moment I was stopped at east 47th street stop light in third lane, looking for their given destination, "One block" I replied.

They opened the door and ran away, leaving back door open and green light with coming traffic, Great! isn't? There I used my cab driver's God given skills to block all traffic behind me and turned on to 47th street, I got out to close the back door of my car when I spotted them hiding behind a pillar of One Dag Hammarskjold Plaza.

Now if you have read my previous post, my school of thought is, if they are going to jump the fare at least give them hard time, so in future they think twice before doing the same thing. I decided to give them a chase. I started walking towards the pillar they were hiding behind, and when I came closer they started running and I ran after them. I choose one of them(weaker one) and after about quarter of block managed to grab him and brought him back to my cab and demanded the fare, strange thing was the other coward never showed up again during this whole thing, Instead a gentleman New Yorker, who probably was getting off his work, helped me to take him to my cab, and this idiot kept asking him, what he had to do with all this?

And guess what? my next fare was also from U.K, going to Affinia Manhattan and we had great talk about upcoming cricket series between U.K and Pakistan.

Note: Yes I know I'm lazy, post was meant to be posted way earlier :)

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4 Comments:

You should have bitch slapped that asshole!

Ever wonder what it feels like to be a New York cabbie? Then during the week of Wed. Sept. 9th to Sept. 15th see Amir Baradaran’s guerilla art, Transient 2010 on Taxi TV. This “Take a cab project” aims to show to most of NYC’s taxi population an alternative window to their relationship or lack of one to their cab driver. Amir’s thinking is about the dynamic between the passenger and the driver. It’s a different the relationship than in Montreal and other cities. Literally a partition separates the driver from the passengers, meant to protect the driver, but also to separate him out from the passengers. More at http://amirbaradaran.com.

So a buddy and I recently started a shuttle company in Park City Utah, I can't wait for some interesting stories and experinces!

WOW only 4 in a week?

I drive in Reno,NV and these happen everyday..bad part is were 50-50 split worse than that is I am a Road Boss and I have to pay the entire 100% so a $15 run out is costly...

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