Lost in Antalya on the Turkish coast
looking for the museum, we wandered into the "old town".

Houses looked like they'd been there since biblical times. We came around the corner to find a cab parked outside one big wooden house inside which a big argument is going on.

Bloke comes out, slams door, the entire house visibly shakes... but then he notices us looking lost. "MiniCab?"

We mention the museum and he's fine about taking us there, so we get in and sit gingerly on the slashed seats. Note that each seat had been slashed once per cushion, each in the same direction. I think his wife did it. Certainly it was very neat.

Anyway, the cab wasn't the problem, it was more his navigation. He knew where the museum was alright, and he even proceeded to take us directly there.

That was the problem - he took us directly. Ignoring all the niceties such as one way streets or the correct side of a dual carriageway to use. At one point we careered off the wrong side of a divided two lane ring road into a small lane on the left, mounted the bank on the side of the road to narrowly miss a donkey cart coming the other way and dropped back down onto the road proper, all whilst conducting a conversation on British coins which involved him rooting around in his pockets for examples and then turning around to show them to us.

What a nice man he was.
( chthonic, Thu 27 May 2004, 10:18, Reply)

Oh yeah, almost forgot
I was in a tax in Sydney a few years back, absolutely ratarsed. Cabbie had what I thought was an American accent.

"what part of America are you from?"

"I'm not from America, I'm from Canada!" came his pissed-off reply.

Not really thinking too hard, (I was only trying to be friendly), I told him that "I dunno, when you think about it, it's pretty much the same place"

Cabbie stops the cab and tells me to get out.

"Screw you, yankie!" I yell at the cab as it drives away...
( gronkpan https://twitter.com/VomitingLarry, Thu 27 May 2004, 10:07, Reply)

Newquay
After a most ill-advised night out in Newquay, surrounded by post-gcse teenagers up to their tiny little eyeballs in mad-dog 20:20, me and a mate decided that we couldn't take much more and hopped a cab back to the campsite.

Now, this was very late and we were both worse for wear, but the the driver seemed fine. A bit crazed and a bit heavy on the gas, perhaps, but this was Cornwall and that's what they're like down there.

Then i mentioned how many seagulls there were roosting on the side of the road.

"Yes," said the driver. "Better do something about that".

So he started swerving over both lanes smacking the poor little buggers under his wheels and off of the wings, trying to get as many of them as he could.

When we finally got back to the campsite, the front of the cab was one big mass of feathers and blood. And one small head, sticking out of the radiator grill.

We didn't tip. We were too busy chucking up.
( Grouch would quite like his clients to stop being numptys, Thu 27 May 2004, 10:04, Reply)

Yo!
on a night out in leeds, i got a bit lucky and spent the night with a lovely lady back at her place in bradford (we live together now, o happy day).

on getting a cab home from Bradford the next morning, the driver asked me where Leeds was - for the uninitiated, Leeds is a city of about a million people, approx 4 miles from Bradford. Then the cunt charged me £25!
(Anger...Pain...Fear...Aggression...Watercolours?, Thu 27 May 2004, 9:40, Reply)

Clueless Greek driver
I phoned to order a minicab, and was asked to state my destination, a place called Sonning Common. When the cab arrived, the driver not only hadn't been told where I wanted to go, but was unaware of the location's existence.
And, "no no, I have no map".
Ok.. so we set off. To a place called Sonning.
Despite my insisting otherwise, "Sonning, Sonning Common, they are same place".
After crawling along with the window down, asking pedestrians in Sonning, the driver eventually concedes that in fact they're not. At last, thanks to my memory for directions and not his, we get to Sonning Common, where he pulls over and makes me get out to go into a One Stop to ask where the road I'm heading to is. As I return to the cab the stupid tit of a driver is looking at his map.
"yes yes I have map, look".
I get to my destination 15 mins late and pay the guy only because it's a work do and I can put it on expenses.
Funnily enough I haven't used that minicab company again.

Sorry for length
(moik, Thu 27 May 2004, 9:39, Reply)

you can't beat dodgy minicabs in London
My favourite was realising half-way through the journey that the car had a broken drivers window and no ignition lock or steering column surround and the bloke had in fact started it by twisting two wires together.

Errmmm .... did you nick this then? I think it was the crowbar on the passenger seat that gave it away...
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Thu 27 May 2004, 9:39, Reply)

Not the cabbie's fault but...
I was walking home, very, very drunk one night and decided to take a short cut down an alley. I live on quite a large housing estate, on which many of the rows of houses look the same. So, I emerge from my short cut and walk down a couple of familiar-looking roads before arriving at my road, only to find that it's not my road. In fact, squinting to read the road sign, it's a road of never heard of. Somehow, I've got myself lost.

I wandered around, lost for about two hours before I happened upon a phone box, wherein I phoned the local cab firm. I read out the address of the phone box, from the information displayed inside and requested a cab home. I thought I detected laughter at the other end of the line as I put the receiver down.

Five minutes later, a taxi turns up and I get in. "Martin Hardie Way", I say and the driver pulls away, changes up to second gear, turns a corner and stops. 20 seconds into the cab ride and I'm home. For nearly three hours, I'd been wandering around on my bloody doorstep.
( <>Dog www.stevelaker.blog, Thu 27 May 2004, 9:36, Reply)

The cabbies on Java
are really bad. Most of the drivers in the cities come from the countryside and are pyschologically damaged by the transition from paddy fields to the snarling chaos of Indonesian cities. This manifests itself in incoherent speech and pronounced spasmodic twitching. Many of them drink special "Health Medicine" to help, which is really just an evil mix of Red Bull, Cough Medicine and something akin to Vics Vaporub.

This is all a bit of a liability when you're supposed to be driving: I remember one incident where the cabbie could hardly speak, let alone sit upright. The twitches were so bad that he kept swerving over to the wrong side of the road, each time narrowly missing oncoming traffic.

Next pair of underpants please.
( String Theory sometimes feeds the sparrows too, Thu 27 May 2004, 9:35, Reply)

'Doing a runner' from Taxis should be an Olympic sport
Circa 1994 ish it became quite fashionable for my mates to do bunks from Taxis in the Bedford area...this seems like a good idea until you realise that Bedford isnt that big a town and that all the cabbies know each other quite well and share 'intelligence' on the sort of little cunts that bunk taxis.
After succesfully managing to avoid paying for taxis for a number of weeks we made the fatal error of using the same cabbie twice...he agreed to take us to our destination and off we went...however all through the journey the driver was frantically barking down his CB to the cab office in urdu or whatever language taxi drivers speak...only when we arrived at our destination about to bunk did we realise that he had been summoning a little welcoming comitee that promptly set about us with baseball bats....
my mate also ran into a lampost knocking himself cold
the moral of the story: there isnt one
( bigmeuprudeboy is using powerpoint or paint...have MERCY, Thu 27 May 2004, 9:31, Reply)

I've had two suspicious illegal cab rides in london
#1 The first was a cab on Upper Street. I got in about 1-2am and was reasonably merry. After a few minutes i realised that the car had no wing mirrors or rear window. There was also a large crack in the windshield.

This made me rather nervous, but being drunk I thought it was my duty to ask how this damage occured. He said quite calmly that his wife caught him in bed with another woman, and promptly took to the car with a baseball bat.


#2 About 4am I was leaving a club in London and needed to get back to Winsor. This would have cost £80+ in a black cab. 'Luckily' we found a 'cabbie' that would take us for £20, too good to be true. We set off at great speed (in his Renault 5) we all fell asleep. I woke with us on the motorway with the car veering from lane to lane. I asked him what was wrong and as i did he pulled onto the hard sholder. He had run out of petrol.

I got a mate to come and pick us up, although he couldnt find us anywhere on the M40. Turns out the guy had also been driving us towards Wales rather than Winsor on the M4. Great.
(monkeyinasuit, Thu 27 May 2004, 9:10, Reply)

I'd send em back mate
A few years ago I did a cruise sailing from Dover. The taxi driver who took me from my hotel to the ship was very scary. He had some very right wing views on illegal immigrants, far too many tattoos and a general air of someone who might suddenly decide to stab you because the voices told him to. (Admittedly the last two are fairly normal for residents of Dover - it is twinned with Royston Vasey.)
(Glen Moranjie, Thu 27 May 2004, 8:48, Reply)

Safety is an abstract concept
In Vietnam on holiday a few years back. Cabbie stops for petrol. HE FILLS THE TANK WHILE HOLDING A LIT CIGARETTE AND THE ENGINE WAS RUNNING. I didn't even think about it until we'd pulled out of the station.

Also, when I was living down in Tassie, there was a little valley which should have had a roundabout at the bottom. It was common practice for the cabbies to just switch off the lights and run through the intersection at top speed. Strange, but someone kept drawing these white outlines of people on the road. Never knew why.
( gronkpan https://twitter.com/VomitingLarry, Thu 27 May 2004, 8:39, Reply)

Gin?
I was coming home from the airport having just been to Amsterdam. Me and the taxi driver got onto the subject of Duty Free. I mentioned I'd brought some Jenever back.
'What's that?' said the driver.
'It's a Dutch Gin', I said.
'Gin? To me; that's a puff's drink.'

Oh. Righto.
( chobb ,ø¤ºGREATº¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºRAPISTº¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºRECOMMENDEDº¤ø, Thu 27 May 2004, 8:31, Reply)

.
It was 3am and i was in the back of a cab in Birmingham engaging in idle chat with the Asian driver. The conversation then took a turn "You want to make some cash mate" said the cabbie "sure how?" was my reply
"smuggling"

"no thanks mate i'm not in to drugs" i said
"no mate not drugs, weapons" said the driver.
He then explained how his family have a gun-running business on the Pakistan border. I politely declined the offer.
( Terry Oblong There's nobody here but us chickens on, Thu 27 May 2004, 7:07, Reply)

I don't know what this 'mini cab' business is--
I'm assuming it's British. But if we're talking regular cabs...

One of my friends at my university has a car but parks it off-campus, since parking on campus is impossible. So we decide we want to go somewhere in the car, and we decide to take a cab to the car.

About halfway through our trip, the cab breaks down. In a lane of traffic. In the middle of rush hour. The taxi driver is swearing quietly at his completely unresponsive vehicle, people are honking behind us, etc. We were exasperated but not really freaked out, since everyone was acting as one would expect in such a situation.

Until a tiny Indian woman got out of one of the cars stuck behind us and came up alongside the cab, yelling at the driver to pull over. Cabbie leaps out of the cab, stomps up to this small woman (he was a large guy) and begins shouting, "FUCK YOU, YOU LITTLE MUSLIM BITCH, YOU WANNA TRY AND SHOVE THE FUCKING CAR? IT'S NOT FUCKING MOVING, SO SHUT THE FUCK UP OR GO BACK TO FUCKING ARABIA. THERE ARE TOO MANY OF YOU FUCKERS IN THIS FUCKING CITY ANYWAYS, IF I GOT RID OF YOU NO ONE WOULD FUCKING CARE."

The woman's two kids (both around the toddler age) were sitting in their car watching this, with the windows down.

The three of us (timid female college students) are sitting in the cab in silent shock. Eventually another cab from the same company came and took us the rest of the way, and we were mightily glad to part with our former driver.

Although really the most shocking bit is that he was calling her a muslim, when, you know, India most definitely isn't.
( TheFelineAnarchist, Thu 27 May 2004, 6:11, Reply)

Okay, so I got sick for a while and couldn't drive
cos me relexes were slowed down to a crawl an I could barely see through puffy, infected eyes. Oh, the stories I could tell about those pissing cabs.

1) There was this great fat arse wearing a white vest and a short pants, the car is piss dirty and stinks to high heaven. Bloke's got a beard all the way down to his gigantic gut. I get in, and the bloke turns on the AC and then puts his arm on the passenger's side seat next to him. So the AC is fanning under his arm and belching forth the awful fecking smell. It was a wonder I didn't barf, but I reached Edinburgh safe and sound.

2) Next cab I took was driven dy a hippie. This car was mdoerately clean, there was a car freshener inside, but the view was spoiled by these cheap flowers strewn all over the fecking place, and these fecking signs drawn by her kids all over the place, (do not smoke), (put on your seatbelt), etc. And the woman would just harp on about her fecking kids. I don't give a flying feck about fecking Natalie, now drive the fecking car! Phew.

3) The Crack Whore was next. This woman smoked and smoked and smoked. She had long ratty hair, and long nails, claws more like, and I would have staked 50 quid that she was a streetwalker. Soon there was so much smoke about you could barely see. Much relieved was I to be dropped off and to quit that tobacco hell.

4) Ah, the Prossie. This one did not smoke as much, but she was rail thin with implants and hair done up into a bun, and had to stop by several men's houses to speak to them. After a fashion of this, I arrived at work nearly an hour late. This bitch drove erratically, grappling with the steering wheel and braking too hard.

5) I got picked up by a fairly decent woman next day, or she would have been decent if she didn't look like Jabba the Fecking Hutt. Her car was fairly clean but had kid's toys all over it. Great, another mother. All the time she regaled me with tales of her darling daughters, while driving like a retard.

and that's my long and sordid tale. After number 5 I started driving again.
(Roland Deschain, Thu 27 May 2004, 5:51, Reply)

Mean cow
I was driving a mini-cab between jobs in the mid-eighties (I was an out of work pilot). This lady needed to get to Olympia Showgrounds in a hurry. Bad traffic around Shepperd's Bush, so I pull over to check the A-Z for a shortcut. She thought I didn't know the way, jumped out of my car and dissapeared towards a black cab rank. Well no problem, I knew where she lived. So I bought superglue and glued her house lock up, and reported her to the police for jumping out of my cab and she owed me around £6:00. The police were sympathetic towards me (being a professional trying to make ends meet), and issued her with a warning, and I left her a note telling her I was going to the petty claims court. She tried to convince the police that I had glued her lock and should be done for petty damages. They said there was no evidence, and advised her to settle out of court, which she did with a cheque for £10. I returned the cheque to her, with a note to say that 'if she was ever stuck, and needed a cab, call me on - - - - - - -'.
(anotheradam, Thu 27 May 2004, 5:04, Reply)

Booger Man
Hubby and I went to Bali for a few days, caught a cab from the airport with the grossest little cabbie ever - all the way to the hotel, he picked his nose & stacked them up in an extrordinarily high little mound on the dashboard. Being 3 months pregnant at the time, it was all I could do to stop myself from vomitting all over him.
(Lambswax, Thu 27 May 2004, 4:55, Reply)

Arrrrrggghh!
My mate & I had been backpacking in Bangkok, and had a very early flight out of there. Caught a cab at 4am with a firkin psycho. He drove at about 200kph down the freeway,we could feel the gforce sucking our faces out the back window. He said "you like the heavy metal - yeah, I love the heavy metal", turned up the radio & started headbanging. "You like whisky? I like whisky, you want?" - had a swig then tries to offer us some. Jesus, it's a miracle we got out of there alive.
(Lambswax, Thu 27 May 2004, 4:49, Reply)

Lovely considerate taxi drivers...
Have had some wonderful interactions with the local cabbies through my job (paramedic).
Most recently I was sent to a pedestrian vs. car and arrived to find a taxi had hit a young lady (moderate to severe injuries). Told the taxi driver to remain on scene until police arrived as it’s offence to leave scene and he would need breath testing anyway. He very curtly replied that he had a “decent fare” waiting in the cab and baulked at my suggestion of getting another cab dispatched to take over his customers. So off he drives with me reporting him to the police. TV news that nite had lovely footage of three police cars doing a road block and then arresting the taxi driver. He also got locked up for the nite in the watch house and was sacked by the taxi firm the next day. There is a God…
Another local cabbie put a complaint in against a colleague of mine for parking his ambulance in a designated taxi bay outside a nite club. My colleague was attending a cardiac arrest and this was the only space available, but the cabby’s attitude was “Yeah, fine, but you don’t see me park in the ambulance bay at the hospital”. (WTF..?)
Lovely, lovely people…
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Thu 27 May 2004, 2:19, Reply)

This happened this week in America.
Cab driver: Hey, I hear y'all don't have guns in England.
Me: That's right, we don't.
(Incredulous pause)
Cab driver: Then what do you use?
( MissPrism, Thu 27 May 2004, 2:02, Reply)

the passenger's revenge....
I was tired and frustrated from drinking all that tequila and it was 3am (cab changeover time) in a stinking hot club, valentines day. Everyone in the world was out this night. I thought it would be a good idea to try and get a cab. In Kings Cross (Sydney) this can be kinda tricky. I manage to find one with his light on (means he's taking passengers) but the fare isn't a juicy one back to the backwoods from whence he came.

He rejects the fare, and I brainsnap. As he's stuck in traffic, I calmly climb onto the bonnet and jump up and down while screaming abuse. That'll teach him.

The punchline... I forgot my poor friends were all on some strong acid, and the last thing they need to see is me devolving into something from the jungle and trying to fight a whole taxi. Some still have flashbacks. Sorry guys.
(poolpartymcguyver, Thu 27 May 2004, 1:58, Reply)

worst journey ever
about 5mins into a long taxi ride once, i realised that i was listening to a black lace album.
*shudders like elvis*
(b3rnie c, Thu 27 May 2004, 1:22, Reply)

i didn't have enough for my fare
so i vomited in the back and ran
(happyhardcoregabbatechno, Thu 27 May 2004, 1:18, Reply)

A couple of drug induced ones
Back in my wilder days when I used to be partial to the odd chemical indulgence:

1) We were going out for a mate's birthday, the do was a haloween fancy dress so I was dressed up in the full scream outfit. I booked a cab and figured that if I dropped my tab of acid (first in a few years), it wouldn't kick in till we got there. Said cab was an hour late, and then charged us a little over the odds for the ride. As the only bloke in the car I got lumbered with having to argue with the cabby - he wasn't budging so I got out and slammed the door pretty hard. The taxi driver then follows me out and in no uncertain terms tells me that he wants to smash my face in. Now, I am not a small guy and at the time was pretty into my martial arts, however this guys was built like a barn, I'm starting to come up on the LSD pretty rapidly on this acid, and am dressed in a black cape, latex mask complete with only a plastic knife to fend him off with. Thankfully I managed to puff my chest up enough for him to fuck off to fleech some other poor drug-addled party-goer but I was fucking bricking it.

To top it off, after we got to the party I took an E to help smooth my ruffled feathers and end up taking a female friend to A&E at 1am after she arsed down the stairs and hurt her ankle. I'm sat in A&E surrounded by coppers, my eyes are like saucers and I'm having a hard time looking normal on my cocktail of Ecstacy, LSD and Booze looking after a girl who's in pain and had an arguement with her boyfriend so is screaming her lungs out and throwing her engagement ring all over the place. Top night all in all.

2) Just to balance it, this is a nice one. I'd been out clubbing with my g/f at the time and both of us had had a couple of pills that turned out to not be very nice. Both her and I are feeling a bit crap (but still pretty off our faces) and decide to call it a night. We stagger out of this out-of-the-way club about 3am and prepare ourselves for a 30 minute walk home on a cold November night. Outside is a minicab (pre-booked only type), we go over and ask if he's picking up, he considers it and says he'll give us a ride. The car is a top of the range Orion with leather seats, really quiet and smooth. The guy drops us back, lets off about a quid on the fare as we didn't have all of it and was really friendly but pleasantly quiet on the drive.

We got back and were pretty violently sick, but that cabby was a star and restoring some of my faith in humanity more than made up for a crappy night.

I should point out that I pretty much don't touch drugs any more and haven't for a few years - these were just events that happened at that time in my life
( Fenris temporary Lazarus, Thu 27 May 2004, 1:00, Reply)

urban legend
but can you give it try:

man (we'll call him bob) gets a cab from a rank outside a train station, the driver is rude and pisses the man off etc. next time tbob is at the station, he spies the same driver at the back of the line and goes along each cab offering oral sex to the drivers in return for a free ride. each one is disgusted, until he gets to the driver at the end and just gets in and pays him. as he is driving past the rest of the cabs he gives the thumbs up sign to the parked drivers. hilarious.
(rnuk http://flickr.com/rnuk, Thu 27 May 2004, 0:51, Reply)

Me and the lads were going to a stripclub one night a couple of months back
Only, me being me, had dressed casually and needed to go home to get into some more appropriate clothes.

So i decided to get a taxi home under the condition that the cabbie waits outside my house whilst i got changed and then takes me back to town.

Which is exactly what he did, but the things he said were what was disturbing.

He barely spoke English - so picture this.

"Where you go tonight?"

"oh im going to a strip club"

"you go there to err get err aroused yeah?"

"err yeah..."

"you like looking at naked woman yeah?"

"err.."

and the conversation continued in simple english, with this taxi driver talking pure filth.

Slightly disturbing.
( Delete Me, Thu 27 May 2004, 0:10, Reply)

One of many
We're in Greenwich. He eventually turns up about 30 minutes late. We get in. I say "we're going to ********". "Where ?" he asks. I said "********. Just head north of the River, and I'll direct you".
I swear, he says, "What river?"

(to non-londoners out there, I assure you, anyone in Greenwich who doesn't know where the Thames is has a real navigation problem)
( wonko the sane, Thu 27 May 2004, 0:07, Reply)

Sorry mate. You weren't meant to hear me
After quite a few drinks I had to get the taxi home with a slightly more drunk female friend.

Having got my seatbelt on with my drunken dexterity and settled, I loudly proclaimed to my friend "Watch out *name*, this cabbie looks like the type that would rape you if you gave him the chance"

I havent been in a cab since. Or out with that girl. but I got home. Guy tried to have a cabbie to customer conversation. By then I was only able to form a series of grunts which I think the guy understood...

Oh yeah, and nothing more worse than a cabbie chatting up your mum. with hilarious results.
(istoleapig, Thu 27 May 2004, 0:05, Reply)