Behind the Scenes Secrets of NYC Taxi Drivers. More than 5. 0,0. New York Citys streets each year, carrying residents, workers, and tourists from one destination to another. Each car will log up to 7. PDF. Needless to say, the citys taxi drivers have seen it all and then some. To get a better idea of what their job entails, mentalfloss asked 4. Eugene Salomon Confessions of a New York Taxi Driver to give us a glimpse of life on the other side of the partition. Heres what he had to say about the tips, the tipsy, and why he sometimes has to call your mom. THEY HAVE A SECRET SIGNAL JUST FOR POLICE. PS-grijH_sWRaMo7kxotPDPIwY4=/960x0/filters:no_upscale()/NYC-taxi-59ca84a022fa3a001139549b.jpg' alt='Tips For Taxi Driver In Nyc' title='Tips For Taxi Driver In Nyc' />Although cabbies arent targeted for robberies as frequently as they were during the height of New Yorks crime epidemic in the 1. If theres any sign of trouble, Salomon can hit a panic button underneath the dash to summon the nearest NYPD cruiser. The London taxi driver is an institution, with their distinctive, black LTI taxis, and the drivers who can take you to anywhere in the sprawling mass of Englands. Its an amber light that flashes from the front of the cab, behind the grille, and from the rear, he says. Ive never had to use it because I was in physical danger, but I have used it when I was in danger of not being paid the fare. LEGALLY, THEY DONT HAVE TO GIVE YOU A RIDE. If youre swaying rather than standing on the curb, a taxi driver in New York City is under no legal obligation to pull over and let you hop incabbies can ignore anyone they feel falls under a drunk and disorderly label. The skill is to be able to recognize the completely plastered person by their body language and lock the doors before they can gain entry into the cab, he says. Common giveaways being held up by waiters or leaning on a parked car. Once theyre in the cab and the person or persons who put them there have quickly disappeared, that drunk, who may well be semi coherent, is now the problem of the cab driver. Theres a solution for that, however. THEY CAN EXECUTE A REVERSE DRUNK DROP. If Salomon finds himself stuck with a slobbering, semiconscious drunkard whos been stuffed into a cab in whats known as a drunk drop, he may well decide to return the problem to the scene of the pick up. That entails circling the taxi around the block and then carrying the inebriated passenger back to the bar or club where they were discharged from in the first place. There have been a couple of instances in the last year in which I did recognize that a drunk drop was about to be perpetuated and I did execute the reverse drunk drop effectively, Salomon says. THEYRE DRIVING IN A VERY SLOW RACE. With so many cabs competing for street hailing passengersrather than the scheduled pick ups found in smaller citiesits up to individual cab drivers to take the initiative and make aggressive plays for fares. We get most of our business from street hails, he says. So if you drive a yellow cab, you are literally in competition with all the other yellow cabs on the street for business. The first cabbie to get to the passenger gets the prize. Most people dont realize that during many hours of a shift passengers can be hard to come by, so its very competitive among the drivers trying to get to the silhouette of a person two blocks down the avenue who is raising a hand in the air. Hello my name is kevin and im 21 years old and im very interested in becoming a nyc taxi driver can u please give me more info of how to become a taxi driver I really. You could look at it as a NASCAR race in slow motion. THERES A SKILL TO HAILING A CAB. Waving your arms like youre sinking into quicksand is not necessarily the most effective way of getting a drivers attention. First, step a bitbut not too farinto the street. Then you must wave your arm, or another body part as circumstances may dictate, in order to catch the attention of the driver. Finally, you must establish eye contact if possible in order to signal to the driver that it is he with whom you are attempting to communicate and that you are not actually trying to get the attention of your friend across the street. If your hands are full, Salomon says its permissible to hail using your nose. SOMETIMES PEOPLE HAVE NO DESTINATION IN MIND. Though it happens rarely, Salomon has had the experience of someone entering his taxi without a purpose. I drove this particular woman around for an hour and the only words she said to me were, Just drive until she finally said, Take me back to where you picked me up. DRIVERS HATE WHEN YOU Close the partition separating the front seat from the back seats. Its considered rude, Salomon says, as well as pointless. It does not in the least prevent sounds from being overheard. Other dislikes customers opening the back door while getting in but continuing to chat with friends tourists who dont know tipping is customary and passengers suggesting they drive safely. What a great idea. Why didnt I think of thatWant to make a NYC driver happyTurn off Taxi TV, the seat mounted monitor in the back that plays programming and commercials in a loop. All day. Every day. SITTING IN THE FRONT CAN GET WEIRD. Rare is the solo passenger who decides to climb into the front seat to sit alongside the driver. I would say it would be frowned upon more by passengers than by drivers, as it changes the relationship between the two by reducing the space between them, Salomon says. The passenger in the back and the driver in the front implies a certain professional relationship, whereas both in the front almost automatically assumes a friendliness between the two, which I think most passengers would be uncomfortable with. Salomon believes gender plays a role in the seating arrangements. There is a gender factor involved in this. When four passengers are getting into a taxi, meaning that one of them will sit in the front, it is by far more often that a male will be chosen to sit in the front seat next to the driver. I think most females feel uncomfortable sitting that close to a man they do not know. THEY MIGHT CALL YOUR MOTHER. While virtually anything you can think of has been left behind in a taxi, the most common item is a cell phone. Hopefully the owner will call his own number while the phone is still charged, Salomon says. Then returning it is easy. Otherwise, the only hope is if the phone isnt locked. Then you look in their contacts for someone named Mom and call that number. A CAB CAN BE RETIRED IN AS LITTLE AS THREE YEARS. While drivers dont have a mandatory retirement age, their rides do by law, taxis in the city typically have to be taken off the road after three years of service, though various exceptions can stretch it out to five or seven. Its only a short life span in terms of time, Salomon says. In terms of miles driven, and brutal miles at that, its around 2. Ive driven cabs with over 3. What happens to the orphaned taxis They might be stripped for parts, sold to private ride services, or bought unwisely by a private party. Since a New York City cab has had about as much wear and tear as a car can conceivably get in three years, the person buying it, known in technical terms as a sucker, is usually getting a bad deal. But he is also getting a life lesson, which from the sellers point of view, is part of the deal. The lesson being, dont ever buy a used cab from the owner of a taxi garage. THEYD PREFER YOU NOT CHANGE CLOTHES IN THE BACK. Every so often, Salomon will get a passenger who, Clark Kent in a telephone booth style, will want to swap out their attire for reasons the police would probably find interesting. My most stellar example was of a woman who was a respectable looking escort on Central Park South change into her street walker outfit en route to 1. Avenue. The escort explained that there was more business on that side of town and that she had to look the part. THEY DONT REALLY CARE IF YOURE IN A HURRY. Telling a driver to step on it is a waste of your oxygen unless youre willing to pay them a little extra for rush serviceand most passengers arent. I learned from experience that they wont tip appropriately for my risking a ticket or performing spectacularly as a driver, he says. Install Mod Proxy Apache Centos more. They would just tip normally or even below average Therefore I will just patronize them and drive as I normally would drive.