You can only imagine the type of people taxi drivers have to drive. Now you get inside look at those crazy situations.
Oregon State Rules Don’t Seem Safe
“One night a super drunk guy asks for a ride. I say sure, and he says ‘ok, I gotta run back into the bar to grab my wife.’ He comes back out five minutes later with 7 other people in tow. Now, I was driving an old school Explorer, and in Oregon if all the seat belts are in use, you can put folks in the bed of a pick up, or in my case, in the rear cargo area. I put drunk guy in the passenger seat next to me, his wife sits directly behind him along with another guy and two other girls. The last three people go in the trunk. We hit the road, and within minutes drunk husband starts making loud hurking noises and I know what’s coming. I hand him one of the trash bags I keep for just this situation. He takes the bag and begins vomiting profusely. We’re making two stops on this trip, and 15 minutes later we pull up to the first house (husband is now semi-comatose and moaning into his puke bag). I turn around, flip on the dome light and what do I see? Pukey’s wife has her shirt down, tits out, skirt up, and the guy next to her is wrist-deep inside her while everyone else watches. They don’t stop either, so I turn to one of the girls in the back seat and tell her the cost. She pays me, and everyone bails out of the cab except drunky and his awful wife. The next stop is their house, and the whole ride there, she’s leaning forward from the back seat, rubbing my shoulders and asking if I want to come in for a drink when we get to her place. I come up with some excuse, we get to their house, she escorts drunk hubby inside then comes back out to pay me. She invites me in again, and I politely refuse, at which point she drops the bomb: ‘oh well, I guess I should probably check on the kids anyways.’ She signs the credit card slip and walks inside. I look at my copy of the receipt and realize that because she didn’t get my tip, I didn’t get a tip either. I left the puke bag in their driveway.” Source
Ewww
“I drove the day shift so I didn’t have to deal with a lot of drunks. That changed one day. Older gentlemen gets in with the help of a friendly stranger. I asked him where he was headed and he mumbled something. After a few minutes trying to grasp the new language this man had created, I learned he had to go to the ATM first. He had offered to blow me as payment, but drunk old men aren’t my type. I take him to another bar with an ATM right inside the door. I pretty much have to carry the guy inside. All heads turn to watch our entrance. I stand him at the ATM and take a step back. Miraculously the drunkard can walk again. He performs a sideways grapevine shuffle up to the bar and sits down. I say, ‘There is no way you are getting served. Everyone saw me carry you in here.’ He looks me dead in the eye, puts his pointer finger up to his lips, and lets out a ‘SSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHH.’ Everyone bursts into laughter and I leave. He’s someone else’s problem now. A couple fares later I see a tiny crinkled up piece of paper in the passenger seat. I open it up and there is an address written on it. This guy had been prepared to get too drunk to talk, but had forgotten to hand me the address. I often wonder what happened to him.” Source
Nice Tipper, Crazy Person
“Had a lady one time that paid me over $30 in fare to drive around town at random because she was convinced the government was following her and monitoring her cell phone. She kept looking out the window every time someone would brake next to us or speed up ahead of us because she thought they were trying to see inside the cab to find her. She asked me if I had a magnet so she could use it to short out or at least disguise the signal from the microchip in her arm. Finally she asked if I had a knife so she could try to cut it out. Eventually she told me to stop out of nowhere (middle of the street on a blind corner) and got out and paid her meter and walked off into the night.” Source
Get Approval First
“After my senior year I drove around Bloomington and Indiana University. During the summer a bunch of prospective students were in and I would drive them to the Indy airport after their visits. Once I had an east coast family that was straight up creepy. Dad didn’t really seem interested in talking so I minded my own business. The weird part was whenever son wanted to say anything to dad, he asked mom if it was okay, at which mom would ask dad if it was okay for the son to speak. But guys, this kid had to be 16 years old. I couldn’t help but suspect if it might have been an abusive household. The air in that cab just had this weird tenseness where the dad seemed perfectly comfortable, but the mom and kid seemed uneasy. Dude tipped okay. But even with all the druggies and solicitations for gay sex, that guy vividly lives in my memory as one of the creepiest people I have ever met.” Source
Don’t Go Back!
“I got a call, pulled up to the address and rang the cellphone number. No answer, rang a few minutes later, she picked up, asked me not to leave. I sat in my car waiting and heard some noise coming from the residence. It sounded familiar but I couldn’t quite understand what it was. A few minutes pass by and the door opened. A woman emerged from the door. She waved at me, hollering that she’s coming. Her voice was harsh, it made that sound you only get from yelling continuously. Behind her was a large man. To say the least he was unhappy about her leaving. She gave me the address when she got in the cab. We made to the end of the street and she asked to turn around because she had forgotten her purse. I knew what the situation was back at her house. I tell her she can pay the fare tomorrow. But she insisted so we went back. She went in and I sat there waiting hoping she walks right back out. Five minutes go by and I’ve heard nothing. So I call the number again. No answer. I honk the horn. A few more minutes pass. I start getting worried, so I held down the horn and finally the guy comes out. He yells at me to go away making up some bs story that she left, went out the back. I responded that ‘my passenger has the meter running and she needs to come out and pay it or I’m calling the cops.’ He turned around and out she came. When she got into the car I could see she was crying and asked her if she was ok. Obviously she wasn’t but she said she was fine and we continued on to her destination. The remainder of the ride was quiet. We pulled into the drive way of the destination, she paid in cash and stopped before climbing out of the car. Looking at me she said ‘Thank you for not leaving’ and that was that. I can tell you that domestic violence is a hard cycle to break. I’m about to enter a nursing program and I learn the skills the help people in the way she needed. To not freeze up, to help in anyway I can, to say what needs to be said. To make a difference.” Source
Don’t Have A Smelly Car
“He looked like he’d been drinking all night. He starts to take his belt off. At about that time, I smell s–t. Thick, cloying, acidic s–t. I say something like, ‘For f–ks sake, did you s–t yourself?” His belt is now wrapped around his fist. The buckle sits on top of his knuckles. He’s sitting sideways in the front seat, facing me. He starts to draw back his fist to, I assume, hit me for asking why my car smells like s–t. I slammed the brakes on. He bounced off the dash and crumpled to the floor of the car. I pulled over and yarded him out of the passenger seat. I still can’t explain what I saw. A syrupy liquid all over my seat and his backside. It was clear. A viscus syrupy stinking clear fluid. The closer you got to it, the more it permeated the folds in your brain. I smelled it for hours, even after cleaning my car and stripping off my clothes at home. It was the worse thing I have ever smelled. Why was this liquid from hell clear? It smelled like it couldn’t be clear.” Source
St. Patrick’s Day
“St. Patrick’s Day, I get a bunch of drunk college ladies in my car. The three in back are cheerful drunks, chatting and laughing. The one riding next to me is motionless. For the first 20 minutes of the trip, this woman doesn’t move a muscle. Her phone is on on her lap, but she isn’t looking at it or touching the screen at all. Having had similar situations before, my concern was that she would revive in a spontaneous shower of vomit. Instead the aforementioned song pops up on my playlist. Dr. Frankenstein would have killed for the resulting resurrection. The previously motionless young lady gasps loudly, shoots forward in her seat, and eagerly asks me to turn it up. The rest of the trip was spent telling me how she was a huge fan of Jack Black, and how she recognized the song from School of Rock.” Source
That’s Intense!
“I’m a bus driver for a college campus. We provide a service to transport students from the bars back to campus. One night a guy comes up and is standing right behind me and places his hand on my shoulder. I tell him he needs to sit down. He ignores me and says, ‘Drop me off at this stop sign.’ I tell him, ‘We are not allowed to stop anywhere other than designated bus stops. It is for your safety, and you will have to take a seat and get off at the next stop. Sorry bud.’ He refuses to sit down so I stop the bus. I tell him that the bus cannot move until he returns to his seat. He gets up real close to me and says really quietly, ‘I will kill everyone on this bus, including myself, if you do not let me off at the stop sign.’ I immediately signal for my security to come to the front of the bus to deal with the situation. He returns to his seat, and I thought that was that. Well he comes back up shortly after, and says to me ‘I’m serious, you better let me off.’ Remembering I can forcefully remove someone from the bus, I opened the door and told him to get of and run, as the police were already on their way. He had two choices. Run as fast as he could, or stay and get caught. He of course took off. 4 hours later, we end our shift and I didn’t think much of it. I get in my car, and start to drive home. I immediately notice a car following me. I drive a few miles to see if it is a coincidence, but recognize it as being intentional after making some pretty obvious switchbacks. I call the police and tell him I am being followed, and will drive to a certain location for them to meet me with some undercover cars waiting. When we get there, the officers arrest the man and look through his backpack. He had a pistol and 4 boxes of ammo in his trunk. I still to this day have no idea why he chose to run from me instead of pull that out. But I am sure as hell glad he didn’t. This would have been a much different story.” Source
Stop Fighting!
“I picked up a Russian girl, she gives me an address saying we are picking up her sister there, and then going to the final destination. She seemed nice enough, so I didn’t have a problem. We get to her sister, and she turns out to be a total complete B—H. Treated me like complete trash the moment she got in the car. They start talking and it gets a bit heated. All the sudden the b—h sister starts wailing on the nice girl and they start full on brawling in the backseat of my car, hair pulling, screaming, punching everything. The nice girl started out by taking the beating, but she was a bit bigger and snapped and became the champ. The fighting started when I was a few blocks from the destination, I was going to yell to stop them until the nice girl got the upper hand over the b—h, at that point I just watched the bitch get beat until I arrived and told them to get out.” Source
I’m Married
“I picked up a man & woman in their 40’s from a bar to near Downtown They were roommates they said, they’d struck out at the bar. So I’m being friendly, listening to their BS when we turn down their block and invite me in. He’s gay, she’s straight and they want some kinda quasi-threeway. Nonononono thank you I explain not available but thanks anyways. They’re offended I don’t feel like having anonymous bisexual sex. So I tell them I’m married and need to be on my way, still don’t work. So I said my wife died a month ago along w/ our unborn baby girl. That sure as f–k worked as they reported me to corporate. They tried to take my job because I wouldn’t suck d–k. I don’t like people.” Source
There’s A First For Everything
“I was still new when I made my first drug dealer client. I’d driven some guy a few times, figured he was dealing but he was good for the fare. We wind up in a strip club parking lot, deal is going bad, got two guys yelling and his buddy is still in my car so I can’t bounce. Finally money changes hands, finished the job. Next week druggie wants me to drive someone & a bag someplace and that I’d get my $ from a ‘trade.’ Nope I blocked that number.” Source
Reincarnation
“I picked him up outside a bar late one night and he wanted to go from La Crosse to La Cresent, MN. He was in his mid thirties not drunk at all but when I got to the destination on a dark street and he gets out he walks to the driver’s side and taps the window and says ‘Ever see pure evil? I’m the reincarnation of Jeffrey Dahmer!’ then walks off. I mentioned the city because that winter we had what was suspected to be a serial killer in town drowning teen boys in the river. Six months later I read in a magazine a about our ‘serial killer,’ it seems a guy walked into a police station and confessed The first words out of his mouth were ‘I’m the reincarnation of Jeffrey Dahmer!’ When investigating it turned out he had the habit of of frequenting gay teen chat rooms and his fantasy was holding a male teen under water and having sex with them. While that was very suspicious they had no physical evidence of him on the bodies because of the water and they couldn’t find anyone who had ever seen him in La Crosse. They had to let him go. Here’s a thing about me. I have face blindness so there no way I could of IDed him. La Crosse at it turns out wasn’t the only city where an inordinate amount of teen boys were found in the river that winter, it could all just be a bunch of accidental deaths. But if they were murders the prime suspect is still out there (how many people think they are the reincarnation of Jeffrey Dahmer?)”. Source
People Are Gross
“Started my shift around midnight on a Friday. Lots of business, good money. Picked up a man that looked like he was in his mid 50’s. Asked me to just drive around the block for about 20 minutes and take him back home. All he did was jerk off while having his coat over his lap thinking I couldn’t hear his desperate and passionate moans while he kept on loudly whispering ‘right there Monica..right there.’ He was alone. Tipped me $20. Ez money. But mentally scarring.” Source
You Ain’t The Boss Of Me
“Picked up a guy in Hollywood around 3:30am and he asks if I can drive to Huntington Beach. 45 mile drive so I say why not. Driving him there and he just starts ranting about all the meth he had done earlier so I’m just casually nodding and keeping him steady. Once I drop him off, he tells me to go pick up his girlfriend about 30 miles away and bring her to him. F–k it, I’ll make more money. Pick her up, drop her off and he tells me to drive back home with the meter on for tip. Definitely strange, but good money. Another guy I picked up insisted I go in the opposite direction from where he wanted to go. Although I told him he might be confused, I went along. After about 15 minutes, he realizes I was right and asked me to turn around. I end up dropping him off about a block away from where I picked him up and he drops a hundred dollar bill in my hand. Never understood why he wanted a ride a block away. That one had me thinking for a while.” Source
Weekend At Bernies
“I help manage a taxi fleet and we had a regular customer who ended up getting arrested for bringing his dead mom in a wheelchair to the bank to try and withdrawal money, Weekend at Bernie’s style. Fortunately he didn’t use our company for that particular trip.” Source
