My 30 minute ride to the Seattle-Tacoma airport yesterday afternoon was relaxing and entirely uneventful. I checked my email on my phone (thanks, Google!) and took a 10-minute phone call from the marketing director at a non-profit I've been helping out.
At the end of the ride, as the driver handed me my luggage, I asked him: "Did you ever race cars?"
Stunned, he said in his heavily accented English, "many times. How did you know?" He had reason to be surprised; he hadn't exceeded 65 mph the whole trip, and had taken every offramp at a leisurely pace appropriate for the Lincoln Town Car he was driving.
But his smooth inputs, acute awareness of the traffic around him, and the way he barely touched the inside tire to the painted line at the apex of every offramp, squeezed on the accelerator and unwound the steering wheel all gave him away. If only every Boston cabbie would do the same. He got a good tip.
Posted by dreeves at November 9, 2006 5:22 PM