First Person
Taxi Driver
To make ends meet, I got behind the wheel of a Houston cab. What was it like? That’s a fare question.
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The cab stand at the Renaissance is full, so I head to the Astrodome area and take a spot behind the one other cab at the Holiday Inn. Forty-five minutes later I am dispatched on Yellow’s computer system to the Fiesta supermarket just across Kirby Drive. Thanks to two red lights, it takes me nearly four minutes to pull up in front of the store. I do so just in time to see the back door of another Yellow cab close and the car pull away with my fare. I have been scooped.
Scooping is frowned upon but accepted as part of the job. Most taxis are dispatched by two-way radio, so all the company’s drivers are privy to the pickup address, and some will literally race to the scene to swipe a fare. The customer, knowing only which cab company he called, will take the first taxi that shows up, unaware that the driver rightfully entitled to the fare is still two blocks away. 8:30 p.m. Another hour passes before my turn comes again, and I’m sent to Pappadeaux’s restaurant, where I pick up three businessmen from Boston who bashfully ask for my recommendation of gentlemen’s clubs. I immediately suggest Rick’s Cabaret. It’s a few blocks farther away than some of the others, and better still, the management at Rick’s offers cabbies a reward of $6 per customer delivered to the door. The fare is $15, to which my customers add a $5 tip. After they’ve entered, I collect my slip from the valet and redeem it with the cashier for an extra $18, making it a $38 fare.
By nine, I’m up to $70, just ahead of my pace. I drive a few blocks down Richmond to City Streets, one of the most active nightclubs on the strip. There won’t be a lot of business this early, but the club offers a cart with free coffee for cabdrivers while we wait, which makes it one of the more pleasant places to hang out.
10:00 p.m. I get a trip dispatched by the computer system. The location is dark, isolated. I drive by trying to spot the fare, locating him standing near a pay phone in front of a closed minimarket bordered by vacant lots on both sides. He’s big. He’s wearing a black leather jacket even though it’s 80 degrees outside. I’m torn. I need the fare, but the warnings flash through my head: If you don’t like the way he looks, don’t pick him up.
The Greater Houston Transportation Company, which operates Yellow, Taxis Fiesta, and Towne Car taxis in Houston, requires all would-be drivers to attend a four-day training class before leasing a cab. One segment of that class is conducted by a Houston Police Department detective who gives students a reality check on the dangers of driving a cab. We are taught that when—not if—we are robbed, we should give up the money without an argument. Conversely, if the perpetrator is armed and directs us to drive him somewhere, he probably intends to kill us, so we’re taught to run for it—some chance being better than none.
The HPD does not keep track of violent crime involving cabdrivers, but according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, taxicab driving is the most dangerous occupation in the country: A hack is nearly four times as likely to get murdered as a police officer. Yellow Cab’s computer system offers some hope of rescue. If a driver is in trouble, he can push an unmarked panic button. His computer is shut down and a message to watch for his cab is broadcast to the rest of the fleet. As other drivers spot the cab, they are instructed to surround it and stay with it until the police arrive (large numbers are painted on the cab’s roof so they can be seen by a police helicopter). An emergency broadcast appears on my computer screen two or three times per shift.
The smart thing to do, we’ve been told, is to turn down fares that meet a certain profile: inappropriate clothing; nervous appearance; dark, isolated locations. Some cities have ordinances requiring drivers to pick up all fares, an anti-discriminatory measure that vastly increases risk to the driver. Fortunately for me, Houston has no such law, and I am free to refuse this fare, although it means going back to the end of the dispatch line.
2:00 a.m. I have just made two short trips: I’ve taken an inebriated pair of newly-mets from a microbrewery to a motel room, stopping first at an all-night pharmacy, and I’ve delivered a middle-aged man in a dirty, old windbreaker to an extremely active motel, where he wanted to visit his “girlfriend.” I’m supposed to pick him up in twenty minutes, but when the approved time arrives, he does not show. While I’m mulling my options, a young woman offers to trade her services for a $7 ride. I agree to take her to her destination, but I decline payment.
2:30 a.m. I am dispatched to a wrecker yard where three teenagers have failed to retrieve their towed car and need a ride home. They live near my house, so I agree to take them for a flat $40. After enduring a lecture from one of the recent high school graduates about how I should go to college so I could get a better job, I drop them off and stop by my house for a quick shower, shave, and change of clothes. By four, I’m in the first row in the staging area at Hobby, behind a dozen drivers sleeping in their cabs.
6:00 a.m. My second wind comes with the sunrise. The first commuters arrive on Southwest at seven, and I am lucky. My passenger is an attorney from Dallas who carries on a pleasant conversation without being patronizing or condescending. It’s only a $20 trip downtown, but she asks me to pick her up near the Galleria at four for a return trip worth $40. The balance of my shift is spent on short trips and a two-hour wait at the cab stand at the Westin Oaks, where the management forbids drivers to get out of their cabs, regardless of temperature, thirst, or other needs.
3:00 p.m. I am back at Yellow Cab’s headquarters. A weathered man with unkempt hair, missing teeth, and a fourth-grade vocabulary vociferously and unrepeatably shares with me his opinion of my IQ. His tirade, brought on because he is assigned to check my oil level and I could not locate the hood-release lever quickly enough, bruises my typically healthy ego. Two weeks earlier I was dressed in a business suit, a cotton shirt, and a silk tie, sharing my views with successful executives as we sat around a conference table. Today a man we would have had security escort from the premises is calling me an idiot. I contemplate whether, in time, a man becomes what society perceives him to be. If I were to drive a cab long enough, would I become the person most passengers already assume I am? I would like to think not, but I look around the yard at my peers and think it is possible I would.
After paying my $92 lease and gas expenses, I have netted $78 for my time on the street. A local ordinance prohibits drivers from spending more than twelve consecutive hours on the road, but only meter time—actual minutes with a fare in the back seat—counts. In the past 24 hours, that adds up to maybe six hours.
“Taking it back out?” the cashier asks.
I have not slept in 28 hours. Solid yellow lines look like double yellow lines, and even a simple task like turning on my blinkers is a challenge. But I have a guaranteed $40 fare at four, which is almost half my next lease payment. And I can always catch a little sleep at the airport.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “I’m going back out.”
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