Tag Archives: driving

I got a huge speeding ticket. Thanks a lot Facebook.

I read this thing online one time, I think it was somebody’s Facebook status, it wasn’t a real status, it was a meme, some picture with text written on top of it, like who knows who came up with it, whoever “liked” or “shared” it on their timeline, it showed up on my newsfeed. It was a picture of a cop, and it said, “If you’re speeding and you see a cop hiding on the side of the road, and it’s too late to slow down, try waving at the officer. He’s more likely not to pull you over.”

So sure enough, I’m driving, months later, not thinking about cops at all, not about cops, not even about driving really, which is dangerous, because my mind wanders when it should be alert, my mind wanders and my foot gets tired and the next thing I know, yup, I’m speeding. And wouldn’t you know it, there’s a cop, a New York State Trooper, hiding out in this little clearing in between trees. He’s got his cop sunglasses on, his giant highway cop hat.

I let off the gas because I don’t want to just do a ridiculous slamming of the brakes. Let’s see if I can’t make this look natural. But I’m going like twenty, twenty-five miles over the speed limit, and as I pass him, yeah I’m not giving it any more gas, but I’m still flying, and I look to my left and this trooper, he’s looking right at me, directly at me, like turning his head as I pass and we make eye contact, he maintains eye contact, and he’s got the radar gun out, and that’s following me too, and I look back to my speedometer, and maybe it’s thirty miles over the speed limit.

So I remember that Facebook thing and I act, quickly, I go to wave to him, but I don’t have the time really to think it through, like what kind of a wave am I going to give him? I’m not going to be like, “Hi! Hello!” all overly enthusiastic. But I don’t want it to be, “Yo. Sup,” either. I shoot for the middle and I wind up doing this weird almost half-salute two-fingered wave. Immediately as I’m doing it I’m thinking, Jesus, what the hell kind of a wave is this?

And the cop must have been thinking the same thing because as soon as I pass, he tears right out of his hiding spot and hits his lights. Getting pulled over is the worst. Sometimes they’ll ride behind you for a little bit, they’ll make you sweat, following you, tailing you for miles, lulling you almost into a false sense of security, like, don’t worry buddy, I’m not going to hit the lights. I’m just going to follow really closely, very, very closely, right on your ass and, guess what? I actually am going to hit the lights. Pull over.

But like I said, this is an immediate hitting of the lights, and so I just know I’m in for it. I’m in the left lane, so I think, do I have to get over to the right lane, pull over to the right shoulder? I put on my right turn signal and wait to change lanes. The cop gets even closer and his car makes a loud siren noise. So I figure, OK, left shoulder it is. I flip on the left turn signal, but the cop does the same thing. So I just slow down, like, OK, I’ll stop right here, but he gets on his loudspeaker and starts saying something at me, but you know how those speakers are, I can’t understand a thing, and I’m still going like fifty.

So I just pull into the left shoulder and stop. The trooper gets out and comes to my window. Every time this happens I always think about how on TV, in the movies, the driver says, line-for-line, “What seems to be the problem officer?” I always consider saying it, but how many people actually say that to a cop in real life? Does it happen like way too much? Maybe it’s a cop’s pet peeve, pulling somebody over, somebody who knows they were speeding, and they roll down the window and they’re like, “Huh? Problem?”

So I don’t say anything. And he just looks at me for a minute and then finally he’s like, “You want to play games? Are you fucking high?” and I’m like, shit, thanks a lot Facebook, and so I try to tell him, “No, officer, sorry it’s just that, I read this thing on Facebook about waving to a cop as you pass by. I’m sorry.”

And he just goes, “License and registration,” so I take out my wallet, I take out my license, I also take out this PBA card, like if you know a cop in real life, they give you this card to show to other cops, maybe they’ll be a little more sympathetic. He sees me go for the PBA card in my wallet, he reaches into the car, takes it, throws it into the woods, far, like he was one of those trick card thrower that you see on TV, like that card’s gone, and he repeats, “License. And. Registration.”

And he gave me a big ticket. Fucking Facebook.

My compliments to the driver

I read this article in the newspaper a few weeks ago about people who call up New York City’s Taxi and Limousine Commission to take the unusual step of complimenting their driver. I say unusual not because it should be unusual to commend someone for a job well done, but because, as the article even points out, most people in this city, all they ever do is complain, about everything. There are like eight million people here trying to coexist on top of one another, but if your taxi driver doesn’t feel like making the trip from midtown Manhattan to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, it’s straight to the TLC web site where, “filing a complaint about a taxi driver” is searched for so frequently, it’s earned a spot prominently on the home page.

But compliments? They’re apparently few and far between, but they do happen. And so I decided, from now on, every time I take a cab, I’m going make a point to go to that web site and give that person a compliment. Why not? I can imagine how awesome it would be to get a random compliment from a total stranger, a “job well done” message from somebody that took the time to pass on a little positivity.

Anyway, last week I took a cab. It was fine. I’m not one of those cab passengers that gets in the car and tries bonding with his driver. Every once in a while I’ll be in a taxi with somebody else, and they’ll be all like, “Hello! How are doing today? That’s wonderful! Where are you from?” and they continue to force conversation out of this weird social hostage situation. I always feel bad because, look, there’s nowhere for this guy to go. And besides, shouldn’t you be leaving him alone to concentrate on his driving? What if he’s new to the city? Do you think he really feels like regaling you with tales about his homeland? Of course not. He wants to drop you off, as soon as possible, so he can repeat the process as many times as his shift will permit.

Like I said, this cab ride was fine. I got in the car and made sure to say, “hello.” Nothing bothers me more than when you’re forced to have an interaction with somebody, and instead of saying hello, they just start barking orders at you. Like if I were a cab driver, and some guy got in, and he just, right away was like, “Take me here,” I think it’s the equivalent of a waiter going up to a table and saying, “Hello, how’s it going today?” and the person won’t even look up, they’ll just snap, “Diet Coke.”

He was talking on his cell phone. He didn’t acknowledge me when I said hi. I wasn’t even sure he heard where I asked him to take me, but I got there, so it didn’t matter. Of course I was a little bothered about the cell phone thing, but I tried not to rush to judgment, mainly because he was talking in a foreign language, and for all I knew, he could have been on the line with his wife overseas, maybe she’s on a boat somewhere, and the boat just collided with another boat, a bigger boat, and they’re in the middle of an ocean somewhere. And it’s certain death, so right before she gets dragged down to the abyss, she calls her beloved in America, and he’s like, shit, I can’t stop working, I can’t, I’ll get fired, my mother will starve to death, all of my brothers and sisters, I can’t stop. And so he’s on the phone, telling his dying wife that they’ll be together in eternity, all while he’s trying to act natural in front of me, in front of his passenger, nervous that I’ll send in a complaint to the TLC, that he might get reprimanded, or fined.

And that’s just one potential legitimate reason for talking while driving. I could come up with at least ten more, right now. I won’t get into them, but they’re all at least somewhat valid. He dropped me off. I left a good tip. And then I went home and logged onto the city’s web site. Damn, it was hard to locate the compliment form, but I found it. And it was kind of tough actually, to come up with convincing praise, seeing as how most of what I knew about this cab driver, it wasn’t based on any actual relationship with him, but mainly a result of my wild imagination, me dreaming up various reasons as to why he’s in this country, why he’s driving a cab, again, why he was on his cell phone.

I don’t remember what I wrote exactly, because it was one of those form boxes on the web site, and I didn’t copy and paste it, and so once I submitted it, that was it, it was gone. And then like a week later I got an email from the TLC, it said, “Thank you for contacting the TLC. Your complaint has been filed, and disciplinary action will be taken immediately.”

I was just like, did I leave a complaint? I thought I concocted this whole story about him stopping on the bridge to help another motorist change a flat tire. And I wrote that he was very apologetic, to me, but I said, hey man, it’s cool, you go do what you got to do, and he was cool about it too, like he turned off the meter while he was helping out, and then when we finally got going again, he continued to apologize, but I was like, no man, it’s good, I get it, you’re a good guy, and then he reached over into the glove compartment and took out a pack of these chips, they were definitely foreign, like maybe he bought them at some ethnic grocery store, but I accepted them, they weren’t bad, they were crunchy, interesting flavors. Again, I don’t remember the specifics of exactly what I wrote, but I don’t know how the TLC would’ve misinterpreted anything that I said as a complaint, as a reason to take disciplinary actions. Fucked up, right?

The economics of sitting down

I wish I could be a taxi driver. It seems like the best job in the world. I love to drive, I love listening to music, so on paper anyway, it just seems perfect. But then I think about the physical toll sitting down all day would take on my body. Every once in a while I’ll drive upstate, to Massachusetts. It’s like a three hour drive. Recently I drove up to Buffalo. That was close to six hours. It was a long, long time sitting down. My lower back hurt so much by the time I finally got to the hotel. I went to the gym to see if I couldn’t run it off, but I couldn’t. It was like I actually injured myself just sitting down.

But I wonder, if I were a full-time taxi driver, would those lower back muscles strengthen up? Maybe I’d get really good at it, but then all of my other muscles, the muscles I usually use for walking and stuff, they’d start to atrophy. And I’d just be stuck, sitting.

And traffic. When I drove up to Buffalo, the majority of the trip was spent simply trying to get out of the city. It’s the worst. Every once in a while I’ll think, maybe I should buy a car. It could really come in handy. But then I’ll get stuck in an epic traffic jam and I realize that this city is no place for driving.

Except for taxi drivers. That’s got to be the best, being a taxi driver who gets stuck in traffic. It’s like if you’re an office worker and the power goes out. You just sit there and hang out, right? It’s not like anybody can get any office work done nowadays without computers. And you still get paid, right? I guess, for a taxi driver, getting stuck in traffic all depends on if you have a passenger before you get stuck. Because once they’re inside the meter keeps running. Sure it’s a little slower if you’re at a dead stop, but whatever, a paid break is a paid break.

Recently my brother and I took a cab home from somewhere and for whatever reason the driver got on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, a notorious parking lot. Sure enough, we get on and it’s just bumper to bumper, nobody moving. This driver was loving it. We sat in there for like half an hour before we finally insisted on getting out right there and walking towards the nearest exit. The driver was like, “You can’t just get out of the cab here.” But we did. And we beat every single car to the nearest exit. It was terrible though. We still had to pay like thirty bucks, then walk to the subway, then wait for the subway. The whole point of not taking the subway was to get home quick.

But whatever, every once in a while you have to pay the idiot tax. That’s what I call it when you just lose money for no other reason than making idiot decisions. Like going to Atlantic City for the weekend and losing hundreds of dollars playing Texas Hold ‘Em. Great idea Rob, you thought you’d just walk up to a table of card players and win? I only played two hands and lost everything.

But that wasn’t the idiot tax for that trip. The idiot tax was when I decided to go to the ATM and win a little back playing Blackjack. I’m telling you, twenty-five dollars a hand. Lose. Lose. Lose. Lose. Nice playing with you sir. And that was only part one of the idiot tax. Part two was taking another hundred bucks out and hoping I could instantly win it back on one round of roulette. Nope. It’s like if you get caught urinating in public. The idiot tax.

I don’t know, maybe I wouldn’t be a great cab driver. Any job where you have to rely on tips is always going to be disheartening, because tipping is optional, and given the option, some people will always be like, nope, no tip.

Maybe if somebody invented a taxi where you could stand up while driving. That would be so much better actually. Why aren’t all cars designed this way? Scientists are always wagging their fingers at us, telling us that we’re all getting so fat because our bodies aren’t meant to be living such sedentary lifestyles. So make all cars standing room only. As a bonus, you’d be able to fit a lot more people inside. Airplanes also. And movie theaters. We should just eliminate seats all together, so everybody has to stand all the time.

And I’m not talking about rickshaws either. That probably wouldn’t be the best job. I’m sure lugging people around like that has got to be grueling. And you don’t stand a chance against a car. I mean, if you get into an accident with a car, you’re dead. Unless everybody had rickshaws. Then that wouldn’t be so bad. But wait a second, if everybody is standing up, then what’s the point of a rickshaw? Because they’d be standing up also. And since they’re already standing, they might as well be walking, because that’s what the drivers are doing. I guess if everybody stood up, everybody would go out of business. Can you imagine how long that line would be at the unemployment office?