Taxis present an inherently creepy scenario: A stranger has complete control over your life for a certain amount of time, and for some reason we completely throw caution to the wind every time. It seems a new story of some disgruntled cabbie going berserk comes out every week, and we believe it, because we, too, have been there. Here are seven taxi stories that’ll make you just want to take the bus instead.
1. Cabbie Arrested for Pee-Pee Fetish
When women would enter Toshihiko Nishi’s cab, he would offer them a snack. The 41-year-old Osaka, Japan taxi driver would give them crackers laced with a powerful diuretic and tell them, “If you can’t hold it in, it’s OK to do it in the cab.”
He intentionally took lengthy, congested routes in hopes passengers would burst at the bladder: “I got a thrill out of watching women try to hold it in,” he told authorities. “I did it maybe 40 or 50 times.” He would pass back an absorbent sheet and tell them to get on with it.
Police raided Nishi’s home and found 120 furosemide tablets (a diuretic drug used to treat excessive fluid accumulation) and 50 videos of passengers pissing themselves on his computer.
Did anyone notice the cab smelled like a cat orgy?
2. Drag Queen Cabbie Robs $225,000 from Passengers
Three years, 60 victims and $225,000 later, Maryland “cabbie” Nyerere Mitchell was rolling in the dough. His scam was to pick up intensely inebriated passengers and pretend to be a woman -– complete with a wig and padded breasts.
Mitchell would ask for their credit card and take them to an ATM when it came time to pay. He would withdraw hundreds of dollars instead of the $10 to $40 it would normally cost. He would then hand them a credit card belonging to a previous passenger he’d ripped off. Once he had the new credit card, he would cash money orders and make oodles of profit.
Mitchell pled guilty in October and faces 10 years in prison. Let’s hope he leaves the transsexual attire at home.
3. Cabbie Swings Meat Cleaver at Passenger Over Chump Change
In Ireland, a taxi driver whipped out a meat cleaver and began swiping at a passenger when he politely asked for change when he gave him $15. Nigerian immigrant Bolanje Banjo -– low on blood sugar, apparently -– sliced the passenger’s shoulder and blood sprayed from the wound.
Tip your cabbie well, as I believe it is policy to brandish a machete if one under-tips. Banjo was sentenced to three years, giving him plenty of time to learn the banjo.
4. “I Do Not Know How My DNA Got in Her Vagina,” Says NYC Cab Driver
Well, it did.
On September 11, police called in 40-year-old Gurmeet Singh for questioning about a sexual assault within a cab similar to his. They gave him a cup of water, which he unwittingly drank, leaving his DNA sample.
It linked police to another rape a few months earlier in which the victim was tied up, raped and held at gunpoint. He also stole her cell phone and a whopping $20.
“I do not know how my DNA got in her vagina,” Singh sung. He was held on $1 million bail and left his wife and children at home wondering “WTF?”
5. Uber Driver Smashes Passenger with Hammer
In September, Patrick Karajah, 26, picked up a few night owls at a San Francisco bar. When they entered his car they immediately began quarreling over routes. Fed up, Karajah told them to GTFO out of his car, at which point he ran outside and cracked passenger Roberto Chicas in the face with a hammer.
He fled the scene as Chicas lay on the sidewalk, slipping in and out of consciousness with a bloodied eye and a fractured skull. Police apprehended Karajah in his home (probably applying to Lyft). He was released on $125,000 bail — I’ve got to switch careers!
Chicas later received the Uber bill, which included a $1 SAFETY FEE. Hopefully he can have that expunged from the record.
6.Young Emily Almost Falls Prey to Violent Scam
This one comes from Reddit, told in the first person by commenter Emily:
“One night I went out with a friend near Liverpool St., London. We were in a pub and I wanted to draw more money out so we could get more drinks. I left the pub and walked down toward the cash machine, drew out my cash, then came back. As I went to enter the door to the pub a cabbie pulled up and got out and said ‘Hey, excuse me?’ I said hello back. ‘I just won the lottery!’ he said. ‘I’ve got champagne and I’m going to have a party, do you want to come?’ I laughed it off and told him no thanks and went into the pub.
“Months later I was reading the paper on the tube and saw that a serial rapist had been arrested. He was a cab driver operating in London and was luring women into his cab by saying he’d won the lottery and had champagne. I’m guessing it was the exact same guy.”
7. Urban Legend or Real Occurrence? You Decide
A Malaysian cabbie was working a slow and lonely night shift when he noticed a woman in a white dress standing at a junction. He stopped, and she quietly entered the cab. It was midnight. The woman simply handed him a piece of paper with directions on it, not saying a word.
He was unfamiliar with the territory, and she soon led him down a dusty dirt road. To his shock, he noticed there weren’t any houses -– just rows upon rows of gravestones staring back at him. They were in a cemetery.
The mysterious passenger tapped him on the shoulder to stop and handed him a wad of bills. He didn’t turn around because he was too creeped out, but he heard the lady in the white dress open and exit the cab.
The next morning –- still disturbed by the incident -– the cabbie drove curiously to the exact location and found a gravestone. It had a picture of the woman in the white dress.
The cabbie later learned the woman had died in a horrific hit-and-run a week earlier in the same junction he picked her up. It happened at midnight.
