Crazy taxi

Taxis are becoming a pet peeve of mine. Yesterday, I had a taxi driver from hell (or probably Pakistan). Some of the taxi drivers are excellent, some are OK and some are bad. This guy was off the charts!

In my usual wait to go home, I was in the queue for only about 10 minutes! Along comes the car, I hop in and at the same time, he got a call from dispatch (legally, he should be picking up the call) I thought he might boot me out but I stayed put and off we went ... in the wrong direction! I confirmed the he knew where to go and he said yes, but less traffic this way (HA!) So there we were, driving all around Jumeirah (which is no where near where I wanted to go) and traffic was definitely NOT better than the usual route. Madly weaving in and out of traffic at break-neck speeds, all the while muttering under his breath in whatever language was his mother tongue. The non-existent seatbelt in the back seat did nothing to ease my apprehension.

We came on some exceptionally heavy traffic and in the lane next to me, there were several big dump trucks, fully loaded. In an effort to get into that lane, my driver decided to go nose to nose with one of one the trucks. Of course, the dump truck won that showdown.

Now, in spite of all the chaos on the roads here, there is surprisingly little "road rage". People are tense but not confrontational. Not this guy! He edges up besides the truck, rolls down his window, yells out a few things that I can only assume were profane and flips him the bird. The trucker wasn't impressed, he starts to get out of his truck! Yikes! I thought they were gonna brawl! Lucky for me, my driver drove off but not before flipping a few more birds and yelling a few more profanities.

Eventually we were headed in vaguely the right direction and I finally spotted the Manazel Towers, the landmark closest to my hotel. By now the fare was already over 20 dirhams (normally the whole trip costs 15Dhs or less) and I told the guy to just let me out, I would walk the rest but he apologized and turned off the meter.

When we get to the Manazel Towers however we are on the wrong side of the road. He started muttering again and suggested that I should get out there in the middle of a 6-lane highway! I was astounded. When there was a break in the traffic, I threw him some money, gave him a few profanities of my own and walked the rest of the way home.

Time to get a car.