10 NYC Cab Horror Stories

Image via Complex Original

"I made the mistake of being friendly with an older driver, as I hate driving in silence. He commented on how he used to party when he was my age and fuck different women every night. Playing along, I asked if he had any tips and tricks for getting women in NYC. He said a word that I didn't recognize. When I gave him a confused look, he said to me like I was an idiot, 'cocaine.'

"Acting like this was a natural thing, I was like, 'oh yeah, nice.' He went on to tell me how he'd go find drunk girls at bars, sniffle, and when they were curious, he'd go back to the cab in the parking lot or his place and fuck after doing drugs. When it was time to get out, I thanked him, acted like he was a genius, and got the fuck out of there."

"My cab smelled like kittens and kitty litter. I looked in the front seat and there were two cats sitting in kitty litter."

"One time a cab driver offered me Everclear and then tried to sell me Russian escorts. I peaced out at a stoplight and walked to the train."

"While in the back of a cab, I suddenly noticed the car veering dangerously close to the sidewalk. I also heard a loud buzzing sound. I looked up to find my cabbie shaving his beard, one hand on the wheel, the other holding a buzzer. Props for multitasking, but dude, at least wait until we're at a light?"

"On the way to a surprise party, my friend hailed a cab to transport several trays of food and party supplies. When he arrived at his destination, the cabbie warned him to be careful taking things out, because the cab was brand new. He started unloading things and was apparently too rough for the cabbie's taste, because the cabbie started screaming at him. He turned to respond and the cabbie socked him in the mouth. Before he could retaliate, the cabbie was back in the driver's seat and peeled off, trunk still open."

"While heading to a DJ gig in Brooklyn, my gypsy cab stopped to refuel. Two kids with guns stepped to the car and me and my man stepped out of the vehicle without saying a word. They drove off with my three crates of records in the trunk. The car was found the next day with nothing in the trunk. I sunk into a lengthy depression."

"Once I sat next to a man on a transatlantic flight who watched Blue Crush three times, then fell asleep with a Maxim opened provocatively in his lap. Sadly, he began talking to me toward the end of the flight, and it turned out that A) he was exactly the type of bro you'd expect based on the events described above, and B) he and I both needed to get from JFK to Laguardia for connecting fights.

"Long story short, I found myself sharing a gypsy cab with this dude between the two airports. The traffic was really bad, and he started getting wild antsy, complaining out loud about how 'fucked up this is.' Eventually, he started tearing pieces of paper out of a notebook and handing notes back to me from the front seat. 'I think this guy is giving us the runaround.' 'He's trying to fuck us over.' They got progressively more violent, to the point that he suggested we 'kick his ass.'

"As I was reading them, he was giving me insane eyes via the rearview mirror, while I responded with the international sign for, 'Nah bro, chill!' Anyway, the driver was not giving us the runaround, he was simply stuck in traffic like every other car, and we eventually reached our destination without any punches thrown."

"There was a cab stopped by the curb with the light on near my apartment in Brooklyn. Without thinking twice, I opened that back door and hopped in. I leaned forward to tell him where I was going and saw that he was pissing into a Gatorade bottle."

"Drunk wifey threw up in a cab, and the cabbie was understandably pissed. I felt bad. She was a handle of a mess, so I had him pull over and we got the paper towels out of the trunk and, I volunteered to clean up the trouble spots. I was also drunk.

"He then starts treating me like I'm aunt Jemima on some, 'you missed a spot, clean that up better" ish, at which point we got into an argument. I ended up mushing his face with a vomit-filled paper towel and punching him in his lip. While he tried to get off the ground and start more beef, wifey hailed another cab and we bounced. She was tossing up drunken middle fingers out the window, as we sped away down 9th ave."

"One night my roommate, my girlfriend at the time, and I were trying to catch a cab from Manhattan to my apartment in Brooklyn. A cab stopped and we hopped in. We went through the whole routine: 'Where are you going?' 'Brooklyn. First stop over the Williamsburg bridge.' The cab driver stomped on the breaks and told us he couldn't take us.

"I said if he didn't take us, we weren't getting out of his car. He said, 'fine. Then we'll all stay here.' Drunk and feeling good, I said, 'fuck it. We can do this all night.' It was Saturday. I could have literally stayed in his cab all night.

"Every five minutes he would grumble something about having to go home and not being able to take us and drop the cab off before his shift ended. We kept telling him to either take us or shut up. Eventually, 20 to 25 minutes passed. He pulled off and told us that he was going to try to find a police officer, because what we were doing was illegal. 'Fine,' we said. 'Go for it.'

"The driver found two cops handling a much more serious situation and pulled over. The cops asked what the problem was and this asshole straight up lied. He told the cops we forced ourselves into the car and assaulted him while doing so. We couldn't believe it. We tried to get a word in and the cops told us to shut up. I thought we were going to get kicked out the car and arrested. Instead, the cops were actually on our side and told the driver that we didn't look menacing and asked him if it didn't make more sense for him to make the 20-minute drive to Brooklyn instead of refusing to drive and looking for police officers.

"He tried to tell the cops the same shit he told us. The cops listened and then told him to drive us to Brooklyn. When the driver got back in the car he told us he couldn't turn his meter back on because he turned if off earlier. I said, 'That's fine. We'll figure out a price.' When we got to my apartment, he said he couldn't take our money because the meter wasn't running, so our ride was free."