Arriving At A Fair Fare

I load into a taxi at Bradley International Airport in Hartford, CT. The cabbie asks where I’m going. When I say “West Hartford” he sighs loudly and stares through the windshield.

I have no idea why I’ve gotten this reaction. The cabbie hits a button on his dashboard computer and bolts away from the curb. My driver proceeds to fill me in on the reason for his angst. My hometown is pretty far from the airport, yet the governing body that sets cab rates has fixed the figure at $40.

Our car blazes onto a highway and I feel like an astronaut enduring a rocket launch. I learn that the $40 rate makes it hard for cabbies to make any profit on the trip. My driver explains the situation in intricate detail, using an increasingly aggressive tone.

The guy is getting worked up, making me nervous. Driving-when-angry is the second most dangerous thing you can do. The first is being a helpless passenger in a car being driven by someone who’s angry. So I try shifting the topic. Perhaps I can ask about the driver himself, but this can be tricky. I don’t want to ask where he’s from, assuming that it’s somewhere in Africa, only to have him say “Springfield, Massachusetts.” I don’t want to be THAT guy. So I ask how the weather’s been.

The cabbie starts talking about all the snow they’ve been having. This goes on for two or three minutes. But then he turns his face toward me and stares. I fight the urge to point through the windshield at the road ahead like some driver Ed teacher (which I once was).

“In Farmington the rate is sixty bucks! And it’s right next door!”

He turns back to watching the road, shaking his head. I feel for the guy. Bureaucracy sucks, and his frustration in justified.

“Tell ya what,” I say, “My Mom’s house is like five minutes from Farmington. Let’s swing past the reservoir there, that’ll put us in Farmington, so you can charge me sixty bucks. Then we’ll drop back down the hill to Mom’s house. That works for me.”

The cabbie turns and stares at me in disbelief. Our eyes lock while I envision the car flipping and bursting into flames. Then he looks back at the road.

Well, I tried.

We arrive at Mom’s house fifteen minutes later. I give the guy $50 and tell him to keep the extra ten. It’s the least I can do to help deal with this injustice.