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Are Cell Phones Killing the Tradition of Cabbies as Travel Guides and Cracker-Barrel Philosophers?

Sadly, I think so. During my recent travels to New Orleans, Austin and Los Angeles, I took eight cab rides. During two of them I barely said a word to the driver. Not because I didn’t want to, but because the cabbie was on his cell phone, yapping with someone else. I was annoyed by the chatter, but also deflated.

The best part of a taxi ride can be conversation with the driver, who I often count on for a nugget or two of insight into the city or some colorful tales, sometimes both. Alas, those kinds of experiences seem to be vanishing.

Monica Hesse writes in a Washington Post story:

James Katz studies why this might be so. Katz is the director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University. Founded in 2004, CMCS researches the social and psychological ramifications of the cellphone explosion.

“It used to be that when people came to a new town they would use the cabdriver to learn what was what, to get a cracker-barrel philosophy of the town,” Katz says. Cabbies acted as information pollinators, steering people away from the Hard Rock Cafe and toward the unknown holes in the wall. “It’s been part of our cultural tradition and initiation, and it’s disappearing.”

I wish cabbies would hang up the phone when they’re driving. Of course, they don’t have to talk to me—though after a ride and a good conversation, I tend to tip more. (I bet I’m not the only one.) But cell-phone-wielding drivers often violate local policies. Also, they do need to get passengers to their destinations in one piece, and talking on a cell phone while driving is a hazard.

It’s a point Hesse brings up in her story, but only in passing. Cab drivers in D.C. are urged to pull over to talk on the phone, but they generally don’t. I’ve never seen it happen.

My intent isn’t to turn this post into a cabbie-bashing session—I still come across drivers willing to talk and offer travel advice—so the last words go to Birhanu Gizaw, a driver quoted in the Washington Post story. He makes the excellent point that cell-phone intrusion goes both ways. “Sometimes passengers, they don’t even stop talking to tell me where to go,” he says. “They get annoyed that I’m not going but they don’t tell me where to go.”

 

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Photos Courtesy:  REUTERS  |  iStockPhoto  |  flickr  

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