Failing a Taxi

Failing a Taxi is a archive of the original Troper Tales entry that was first hosted on the TV tropes website.

The entries

 * HersheleOstropoler: This (white) troper]] has trouble getting a cab on one particular street in Manhattan. This goes back to when I lived in Harlem, but the driver had no way of knowing that.


 * This Troper lives near NYC and visits often. The only time she fails a taxi is when it's raining and/or extremely cold/hot. Go figure.
 * It's basic math. Take all of the empty taxis driving down your street that would normally stop for you, subtract all of the taxis that are no longer empty when it is raining or extremely hot/cold, and you get a number near or equal to zero. It's certainly possible that empty taxis stop for you more readily because you are female or [some race], but someone would have to be really anti-[whatever] to pass up a fare for such a pointless reason (AndThatsTerrible sadly, as I said, "it's certainly possible").


 * Travelling from a cab-heavy place to one which is less so is common. I came back to Pittsburgh from New York City back in 1996 and a guy who was coming from NYC marched around out in front of the Amtrak station as I waited for my ride, loudly complaining and wondering where the hell all the cabs were. I had to point out that they don't drive idly around Pittsburgh and you had to call one from a special phone in the station.


 * In Canberra apparently now taxi companies have a policy of NOT stopping when hailed. To catch a cab you either have to ring for one (and this is unreliable, I rung the cab company from a position very close to the centre of town and didn't get one within 20 minutes, so I walked into town and got one from a rank), or you have to go to a taxi rank. I've gotten into a cab about 200 metres from a taxi rank, only to be told that I had to get out and wait at the taxi rank.