I’m in NYC often enough to have experienced a broad selection of taxi drivers. As you’re driving around you’re passing everyone on the road, swerving in and out of traffic, honking at people that don’t turn fast enough. Some of those you are passing are other cabs. There’s always the traffic jam that has taxi drivers in the middle of it.
My question is this: why, in all my time in NYC riding in taxis, have I never once gotten a taxi that drives slow or unaggressively? Is my luck really such that I always – ALWAYS – get the aggressive driver? Or is NYC running some production so that every taxi driver seems amazing by having fake non-aggressive taxis simply driving around the city?
In 21 years in NYC, the only time that I rode in a “normally” driven taxi I missed my flight at JFK!
It’s all relative: those cabs that you feel are unaggressive are likely slowed by aggressive jaywalking pedestrians. Think about it the next time you’re running late between meetings outside of the office…