Harden The F*** Up, Cabbies

March 22nd, 2008 at 10:37am Keith Hemstreet 8

Two men are seated in a cab.  One man is driving.  The other man rides in the back.  One is working, making his living driving a cab.  The other is on vacation, leaving a party, intoxicated.  A short time into the ride a fight ensues.  The driver flees his cab with a concussion, nasal contusion, and bloody nose.  The passenger jumps into the driver’s seat and speeds away in the cab.

The above mentioned incident occurred this summer in Aspen.  The cab driver claims he was assaulted and abandoned his cab to prevent further injury.  The passenger claims that he was hit first, and was only defending himself when he pummeled the driver and fled in his cab.

So who is telling the truth?

Let’s think this through.  We have a beaten and bloodied cab driver who flees his cab, the asset which puts food on the table, mind you, and a drunken, unharmed tourist who speeds away from the scene in a vehicle that is not his own.

If I were on the jury, I believe I’d find in favor of the cabbie.  I know this is slightly presumptuous, having not heard a complete story from each side.  However, there are precedents from which I base my decision.

First off, when driving it is difficult to hit someone in the back seat.  I know from personal experience.  Almost daily, my younger brother would flick my ear as I drove he and my sisters to school.  It annoyed the hell out of me.  I tried in vain to retaliate and land a solid blow on that little punk.  I swung every-which-way, but never once did I connect.  I had to wait patiently until we had parked at school to inflict pain upon him.
“When we get to school, you’re dead,” I would tell him.   He laughed, that is until I parked.  Then he cried.

Second, I am well aware of the standard operating procedures of New York City cab drivers, the most skilled cabbies in the world, for dealing with problematic passengers, and their SOP refutes the defendant’s claim that he was punched first.  Let me explain.

Waiting on MacDougal and 4th, I saw a cab abruptly veer from traffic and pull to the curb nearby.  The driver jumped from the cab, opened the back door, dragged the passenger onto the sidewalk by his feet and proceeded to beat the shit out of him.

“Get off me, you whop fuck!” the passenger yelled between blows.  “I’ll fucking kill you, you ginny piece of shit!”

The insults ended when the passenger could no longer to speak, only gurgle and spit teeth.  The cabbie stood over the passenger like Ali over Sonny Liston.  They’d both had enough.  That’s when the cab driver looked to me.

“Do you need a taxi?” he asked, calmly.

“Yep,” I said.

“Hop in.”

I stepped over the pummeled man, moaning and curled in a fetal position on the sidewalk, and slid into the cab.

The point of this story is an important one.  New York City cab drivers, the best on the planet, don’t hit passengers while driving.  They pull over first.

Note to Aspen cabbies: toughen the fuck up.  Don’t let yourself get manhandled in your own cab.  That’s just pathetic.  Carry a baton if you have to.  If our poor Aspen Taxi driver had only been schooled in New York City he could have avoided getting his ass kicked, and possibly even been the one doing the ass kicking.  Such an outcome would have kept both parties out of court.  It’s likely the drunken passenger wouldn’t have even remembered what happened.

In no way am I advocating violence, only instant justice.  It is really unfortunate that these issues must drag on.

Entry Filed under: Aspen, Pitkin County