Most of us are new to the transportation industry—the phenomena known as “ridesharing” minted millions of new transportation workers, most of whom had never driven a cab or limo in their lives.
Before Uber, Lyft, the Rideshare Guy and iPhones, there were taxicabs, driven by crusty, stalwart men and women (and everything in between) who scraped together a living in one of the most dirty and dangerous jobs in America. However, even the worst experiences can trigger nostalgia, and below, senior RSG contributor Gabe Ets-Hokin shares the top 10 things he misses most about taxi driving.
When drivers brag about having 10, 20 or even 30,000 Uber/Lyft rides under their straining belts, I scoff. When I started driving rideshare back in 2014, I was already a seasoned veteran of San Francisco’s narrow, steep streets, having driven for Yellow Cab while in college and law school between 1995-2002.
It was dangerous and dirty work—drivers were robbed at gun or knifepoint every weekend, a cabbie was murdered every year I worked, and cleaning up vomit was a nightly occurrence (and just try to get a taxi passenger to pay a cleaning fee!)
Still, I liked it, and if driving late at night wasn’t so hard on family life, I might be doing it still. Back then, when you could rent a nice apartment in San Francisco for less than $1,000, I could count on making $200 cash for an 11-hour shift, sometimes as much as $400 on Halloween or New Year’s Eve.
They were tough, but great times. Here’s what I miss the most.
Editor’s note: A lot of the experiences below also happened at a specific point in time (1995-2002) and in San Francisco, so keep in mind some assumptions and attitudes have changed.
Top 10 Things I Miss the Most About Driving a Taxi
1. Tips, Tips and More Tips
Tipping. It’s either a way to thank and reward service workers or a holdover from the days of slavery, or a hundred other meaning-drenched things, depending on whom you ask.
All I can say about tipping is that I miss it.
I mean, really, really miss it. I made about 25 percent in tips. Tips were higher because it was a 90-percent cash business, and if you have a ride for $7.40, and you give the driver a $10 or two fives, are you really going to ask for change?
Compare that to Uber and Lyft, with a 10 percent tip being an unusually high amount.
2. People Assuming You Know Where You’re Going
In San Francisco (as in most big cities around the globe), you had to pass a local geography test, and unless you paid Officer M. $100, it was pretty tough to pass. So when a passenger got into your cab and said “999 Green,” they assumed you knew it was at Green and Jones and that you had to take Union because Green doesn’t go all the way to Jones from Columbus.
Oh, and GPS was something that Tomahawk cruise missiles used, not cabbies.
Contrast that with today, when if there’s any problem with the GPS, passengers instantly become next-level micromanagers, breathing down your neck as they tell you exactly how to get to the destination because they assume you’d be unable to find the hole in a doughnut without your phone.
Sadly, they’re probably right.
3. Rowdy Businessmen
“Hey!” the squad of drunken conventioneers would say, cramming into the back seat like it was a clown car, “we wanna see some t*ts!” I knew just where to take them, enduring their drunken guffaws and idiotic jokes because I knew the doorman at the Gold Club would tip me $10 a head with each fresh harvest of out-of-town rubes.
4. Irish Drunks
Is it culturally insensitive to say that at least among single Irish men in San Francisco in the late 1990s, drinking was a thing? A very big thing? Well, it’s true. It was. And let me tell you, those guys were drinking pros.
It didn’t matter what night of the week it was, the Irish bars—and these were real Irish bars, not cheesy fake Irish sports bars with a few Guinness signs and a corny name like “O’ Douligans” or something—were crammed with big, tough-looking dudes tossing back pints. These were dives called Durty Nellie’s or An Bodhran and Ireland 32’s where they held fundraisers for the IRA, complete with live Gaelic music.
Even though these dudes were frequently too drunk to speak in complete sentences (or any kind of sentences), and sometimes had to show me their driver’s license so I could get their address, they never threw up. Not once. You just don’t see that kind of class these days.
5. Drag Queens
If you’ve never been in a car with seven pre-gamed drag queens, you don’t really understand fun. You think you do, but you don’t. This could be a whole other article.
6. WARNING ADULT/NSFW CONTENT: Hookers
Again, not PC or G-Rated, but driving a cab in any big (or small) city means you’ll interact with people of the night.
Turns out that if you’re a street-walking prostitute, there are no break rooms or any kind of thing in the OSHA regulations. So the only way for them to get off their feet and out of the cold (and out from under the constant supervision of their pimps) is to hail a cab.
I frequently would drive them around the block for a few minutes after being treated to some (hilarious!) conversation I’ll only relate with a few drinks in me.
7. Being Rude
We’ve all had altercations with passengers, but in the back of our minds, we’ve always been more or less nervous about our all-important rating. But I can recall when the only five stars you’d see were in photos of Eisenhower’s hat.
Taxicab companies also viewed us as independent contractors, so they’d generally soothe complaining customers somehow while rarely telling us about it. And the City’s Taxicab Detail, led by the not-really-that-ethical Officer M, didn’t care much either—you had to be really, really bad to get your “A-Card” (driving permit) pulled.
So that meant if you were a below-average passenger, I’d frequently be rude back, to the point of pepper-spraying or screaming obscenities. I’m not proud, and I got punched a few times in the face, but whatever. It’s nice to honestly relate to people.
8. The Ford Crown Victoria
Okay, maybe I don’t really miss the Crown Vic unless I was driving one reserved for the medallion owners. Those were less than a year old and still smelled new, had comfy seats, and didn’t belch clouds of blue smoke. They were spacious, could hold at least seven less-hippy drag queens (see above) easy to get in and out of, and had enough horsepower to get a few feet of air on the crest of a steep hill.
Of course, as a junior driver without an assigned weekend shift, I drove the “spares”–three or four-year-old cars with a quarter-million miles or more that smelled like someone had eaten dirty gym socks, smoked a pack of Kents and then vomited (understandably).
9. Camaraderie
Remember the show “Taxi?” With the wacky characters—the mechanic from an unnamed foreign country, the rude dispatcher, the intellectual driver, the young driver, etc? Yeah, it wasn’t exactly like that, but we did hang around the cab yard at the beginning and end of each shift, as we had to wait for our cabs, then clean them and have the garage guys fix any issues (the cabs all had issues, like the drivers), and then, when we returned, we’d gas up the cabs and then wait in line to pay for our shift rental and cash out vouchers, scrip and credit-card receipts.
That meant plenty of time to hang out, swap lies and stories and get to know our fellow drivers. Additionally, we’d hang out at the airport cab lot while waiting for rides—there was a gut-busting roach coach down there (remember when food trucks were never “gourmet?”) with dollar-a-plate Chinese food and sodas, and since there were never that many SF cabbies, there was always someone we knew hanging out there.
I still remember and miss these folks. Ray-Ray, Biker Jerry, Frenchy the Commie, Pablo, Emmanuel, and about 60 guys named “João.” Every one of them had stories—amazing stories—and they could usually be asked for favors or just an ear to listen with.
But as Uber drivers, with no place where we can meet face-to-face during working hours, we have no friends—only rivals. Which is just the way the companies like it, and the reason we’ll never get the pay and treatment we deserve.
10. Being 26
That’s what any nostalgia piece like this is really about, right? In 1995, the year I started driving, I was 26. I had little in the way of financial or familial obligations, and if I wanted to drive 11 hours a day for a month in a row, nobody would stop me.
Today, even if I wanted to, my own body would be my greatest enemy. I just can’t work that much, but back then? I’d drive till 3:00 am, go to sleep at 4:30, or sometimes just grab coffee with my driver buddies and then go on my Sunday morning motorcycle ride, and then at 5 the next afternoon do it all over again. Why not?
Was driving a cab better than driving Uber? No! It was dangerous, dirty work that beat up your body and soul, yet drivers would do it, year after year until they were broken, mentally, financially, and physically. Still, it was fun and I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything.
Readers, what do you think about the difference between driving a taxi cab and rideshare? Do you see similarities? Do you think you would prefer taxi driving over rideshare driving?
-Gabe @ RSG
