Seat Belts and Taxi Drivers
May.04, 2009 in
Minneapolis, travel
I need ruling: What is an appropriate tip for a taxi driver who doesn’t buckle his seat belt, leading to recurring ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding dings during the entire trip?
To get a feel for what I’m talking about, check out this clip I shot with my phone on E Lake Street after getting off Hiawatha. The dinging starts 16 seconds into the video:
This was on a 1-2 minute loop, so this was around the 15th time the beeping happened during this cab ride home.
Strangely, with only a few blocks to go, the taxi drive dropped an f-bomb and buckled up . . . by buckling the belt behind his body.
What are your thoughts on gratuities after dealing with this nonsense?
May 4th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
The most appropriate gratuity would be to call the cab company and let them know what’s up. I doubt you’d be saving anyone’s life, but you could stop this idiot from driving others crazy.
May 5th, 2009 at 8:04 am
The most appropriate tip is this: “Buckle your seatbelt, asshole, that dinging is annoying to your passengers. It’s a tip.”
May 5th, 2009 at 10:57 am
I don’t get why tipping is required for taxis. If I’m paying someone to drive me somewhere, I pay them to drive me somewhere, and that intrinsically means them doing a good job. If it were a better system, you’d be able to only pay them .75 of the total bill if that shit happened. If it’s a great taxi ride — the driver is nice, they drive safely, and it’s not brutal to ride in their car — sure, give them a tip. But the beeping is insane.
May 5th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
My favorite taxi ironies:
1. Most people I know (not including Luke Wilson in Old School) don’t wear their seatbelts when riding in a cab. Why not? Cab drivers are among the worst drivers out there!!! Which leads to my second comment:
2. Taxi drivers are professional drivers, they get paid to drive, and yet they’re terrible drivers! It’s quite the profession, such ineptitude getting rewarded like that.
Am I wrong?
May 5th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
TAYLOR! WTF? Do you hate people in tipped industries or what? Most of that fare goes to the cab company. Without tips cabbies would be as broke as wait staff.
I’ve halved my tip to let a driver know I didn’t appreciate hearing RushfuckingLimbaugh on his radio, but it would take something really nasty to get me to not tip at all.
May 7th, 2009 at 9:16 am
LUCAS!WTF? If you think taxi drivers are the worst drivers you should spend a day in my taxi and you’d see how the rest of the public drive I’malways amazed after each shift that i’ve come through unscathed!
May 7th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Luke-
Ralph Nader’s campaign to make seat belts a law in Mogadishu never got off the ground for some reason; hence those who hail from there are unaccustomed to wearing them when they come to Mpls to be cabbies.
Not to stereotype…I know there are native Minnesotans who are cabbies too. Have you noticed they always look like Jesus?
Mark-
I’d make the driver pay ME if he had any of those idiots from KTLK on.