Sob Stories
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The first year I drove a cab I fell for all the sob stories some of my passengers told me.
I began driving a cab in the summer of 2012. Racing season was in its second week. This was a Saturday and it is one of the best days to be a cab driver. I had been driving for about two weeks when this incident happened. I picked up some fresh-faced young guy on Crescent Street who was nicely dressed and his short blond hair looked as if he had just come from the barber shop.
He stated that his car keys and cash were locked inside his vehicle, and that the only individual with a spare set of keys was in Schenectady. I informed him of the fare amount.
He told me he would pay me when we came back to Saratoga.
My dispatcher told me, “Nancy, if he doesn’t have the fare at the beginning of the ride, he won’t have it on the end of the ride.’ He told me that if my passenger didn’t pay the fare that I would have to. I foolishly took a chance.
He will be identified solely as the son of a local homebuilder.
His nervous energy and his hostility got worse as we drove further away from Saratoga County. I had to involve the Schenectady police, and I had to wait at least 40 minutes for them to show up.
When his dealer refused to sell him any drugs, he then tried bullying me into taking him back to Saratoga which of course I refused.
He took off on foot just before the Schenectady police showed up. At this time, I had no idea who my passenger was so there was nothing that the police could do. From that time on I had a strict policy about long drives and any fare over ten dollars I would request payment up front.
If you have never worked with the public as a driver, server or bartender you have no idea how many people try to get away with this type of behavior. Eventually, the local homebuilder’s son had ripped off so many people, bosses, coworkers that he finally was arrested and put in jail.
It was a famous case out here in California. A school bus full school children was highjacked, and the kids were buried alive inside the bus out in the wilderness and held for what I think was a $2 million ransom.
The fact that the guy was the son of a homebuilder acting that way doesn't surprise me in the least. It just goes to show it isn't poverty like the left claims. It's character.