3 ms·

The vast majority of people don't report when taxi drivers get a little lost, for most something really serious must occur to report, e.g. crashes, overcharging

krisoft 2y ago
I agree with that. I don’t think passenger reports leading to taxi driver termination is a likely path. But if a taxi driver has cognitive decline which imparts their ability to route plan effectively that would increase their stress, and preceived workload. What i think can be more likely is that those drivers would self-select out of the pool of taxi drivers. Subjectively they would say something like “it was too much trouble, there are better jobs elsewhere, etc” but what might be behind is the early symptomps of Alzheimer.
- noduerme 2y ago
  This is not how taxi driving works / worked. Let me give you a slice of taxi driving here, since I did it for some years. 99% of taxi drivers in America are immigrants. I was one of the few exceptions, one of only 3 native born drivers in Los Angeles that I knew of. (One was in a rock band, one was on drugs and slept in different motels every night; then me). The young immigrant drivers might be from anywhere, most of them have no education. But the drivers in their 50s to 70s (all men) who are still working are all either Korean or Russian immigrants. They have university degrees, they were engineers or factory managers in Russia. They're highly educated and extremely intelligent. They're also excellent at committing petty fraud. There is absolutely no such thing as one of these people quitting their job as a taxi driver to do something else. Never happened. They will spend all day playing poker on the hood of their cab waiting in line at the airport and saying that "driving taxi is killing my soul", they will die in the driver's seat before quitting because they think they've become too out-of-touch to continue. And by no means would they get some other job if they quit. The scenario in which they quit and get another job just doesn't exist. For a rough analog, go to a casino and look at the people over 60 who are playing a slot machine who used to have a somewhat respectable career as a service manager at a car dealership in the mists of the distant past, and consider the chances of them quitting gambling and going to rehab and then training to be a bank teller, and actually getting a job as one. That's about the chance of a 60 year old cab driver in LA quitting before he dies. Driving taxi is/was, among other things, deeply addicting as a gambling pathology. Any given ride could get you killed, get you robbed, or get you laid. And driving around picking up strangers at 4am with a wad of $500 in your pocket is a thrill. The only difference between you and the cops was that you were unarmed and the cops would find your body. You were picking up the same people.
  - krisoft 2y ago
    Very cool story. But so what? The people you describe are the ones who stuck with it. The people for whom it was not working went and found something else. So you would not describe them as taxi drivers. You would describe them as used car salesman, or grocery store casheer, or simply bum on the street.

krisoft 2y ago

I agree with that. I don’t think passenger reports leading to taxi driver termination is a likely path. But if a taxi driver has cognitive decline which imparts their ability to route plan effectively that would increase their stress, and preceived workload. What i think can be more likely is that those drivers would self-select out of the pool of taxi drivers. Subjectively they would say something like “it was too much trouble, there are better jobs elsewhere, etc” but what might be behind is the early symptomps of Alzheimer.

noduerme 2y ago
This is not how taxi driving works / worked. Let me give you a slice of taxi driving here, since I did it for some years. 99% of taxi drivers in America are immigrants. I was one of the few exceptions, one of only 3 native born drivers in Los Angeles that I knew of. (One was in a rock band, one was on drugs and slept in different motels every night; then me). The young immigrant drivers might be from anywhere, most of them have no education. But the drivers in their 50s to 70s (all men) who are still working are all either Korean or Russian immigrants. They have university degrees, they were engineers or factory managers in Russia. They're highly educated and extremely intelligent. They're also excellent at committing petty fraud. There is absolutely no such thing as one of these people quitting their job as a taxi driver to do something else. Never happened. They will spend all day playing poker on the hood of their cab waiting in line at the airport and saying that "driving taxi is killing my soul", they will die in the driver's seat before quitting because they think they've become too out-of-touch to continue. And by no means would they get some other job if they quit. The scenario in which they quit and get another job just doesn't exist. For a rough analog, go to a casino and look at the people over 60 who are playing a slot machine who used to have a somewhat respectable career as a service manager at a car dealership in the mists of the distant past, and consider the chances of them quitting gambling and going to rehab and then training to be a bank teller, and actually getting a job as one. That's about the chance of a 60 year old cab driver in LA quitting before he dies. Driving taxi is/was, among other things, deeply addicting as a gambling pathology. Any given ride could get you killed, get you robbed, or get you laid. And driving around picking up strangers at 4am with a wad of $500 in your pocket is a thrill. The only difference between you and the cops was that you were unarmed and the cops would find your body. You were picking up the same people.
- krisoft 2y ago
  Very cool story. But so what? The people you describe are the ones who stuck with it. The people for whom it was not working went and found something else. So you would not describe them as taxi drivers. You would describe them as used car salesman, or grocery store casheer, or simply bum on the street.