You cut across the city in as straight a line as possible, swimming through the grid in a series of lefts and rights so sudden that sometimes you don’t even know you’re making them until the car has already started to turn. It’s a muscle memory so strong that it’s mostly instinct.
Like the salmon swims upstream to spawn, you swim through the traffic of city streets with your passengers, passing buses by an inch on either side, rolling through four-way stops until you find a straightaway to hit.
Then you punch the gas.
When you get behind someone going too slow, you get in front of them or you turn and break away, heading towards your destination at top speed until you’re stopping the meter and collecting your fare, eager to get to the next one.
There is math involved.
The meter is simple: go under twelve miles an hour and the meter moves on time. Go over twelve miles an hour and it moves on distance, which means the meter moves faster the faster you go.
Which is good, because you didn’t start driving a taxi to go slow.
The quicker you get to your destination, the better use you’ve made of your time, which is what you’re up against – time. The faster you get your passengers to where they’re going, the bigger the tip, and the more time you have to get more rides. The more times you can turn your meter on and off during a shift, the better, as dropping the flag is equal to either seven minutes of waiting time or 1.4 miles, neither of which is faster than the time it takes to hit a button.
So yeah… you tend to drive fast. Not reckless, but aggressive. Controlled, not haphazard.
There is a grace in it, climbing the hills of San Francisco while the automatic transmission hums along smoothly, your hands on the wheel as you drive hard with a gentle touch.
You never once doubt yourself or your abilities, only that of those around you, the ones who drive the same route day after day, never once adjusting for traffic or time.
The delivery trucks and the buses are too big to be nimble and too afraid of an accident, even if it isn’t their fault. The others see a taxi and just assume you’re going to go around them or go first and so they step aside to let you go.
Or you just say fuck it and go anyways until they are forced to relinquish their right of way because you will give no quarter.
It’s all about time after all, and you’ve got none to spare.
Unless you don’t have a passenger or you’re not on your way to an order – then you can sit back and cruise. You don’t want to go so fast that you miss the people on the street who might be looking for you.
Better to save the lead foot for those moments when it counts.
If you get a ticket, well – that’s when you send it to the lawyer. That’s what you pay her for, after all.
To stay on the road, where you belong.
