The odds of getting a taxi at Fort Lauderdale Airport within this lifetime are, at best, remote. Unlike any other airport in the known world, taxis at FLL are not permitted to line up and wait for arriving passengers; they are required to wait at a distant location and when a customer arrives the dispatcher has to call for one.
By the time a taxi arrives, 20 – 30 minutes later, no one is happy: The passengers are surly and the cab drivers are sullen but generally not hostile. But not my cab driver last week: he was angry at the world. He tried to run over the dispatcher as he pulled up to the curb, and as I was putting my luggage into the trunk he decided to back up, which necessitated a quick hop to the side for me. When the dispatcher, with oaths, told the driver to put the car into park he got out, mumbling, and as I was putting my briefcase into the trunk he tried to close it on my head.
The cab was stifling hot, and some foreign language talk show was blaring on the radio. I asked the cabbie to turn the air conditioner on and the radio off and he ignored me. I repeated myself, louder, and glaring, he did.
“Address?” said the cabbie.
I don’t give cab drivers my address because they plug it into their GPS and they take me to my house, which is only 6 miles away, via the longest possible route, generally via Naples. I explained this and said, “Just head north on Federal; I’ll tell you where to go.”
The cabbie looked at me in the rear view mirror. “Address?” he said and I launched into my explanation a second time.
The cabbie looked at me in the rear view mirror. “Address?” he said.
“Just drive,” I said.
He glared. “Why you don’t want to give me your address?” he said and I ignored him.
Retaliation was swift and merciless: he floored the car and we took off down Federal Highway at 75 miles an hour. After we ran the red light at State Road 84 I asked him to slow down. He ignored me. When he ran the red light at SE 17 Street I told him to slow down. He still ignored me.
As we sped down Sunrise Boulevard I was flattened against the back seat by the G-forces. That’s when inspiration hit. “Make a left turn on Middle River Drive,” I said. As any local knows, Middle River Drive is home to a series of brutal speed bumps, designed to slow traffic down.
We hit the first speed bump at 55 miles an hour and the car went airborne — think of the opening credits of “Dukes of Hazard.” The cabbie swore but did not slow down; but those speed bumps were relentless. After the fourth bump the car’s transmission, and my teeth, were hanging on by a thread but for the fifth bump he slowed down and when he finally pulled up to my house he was doing a sedate 15 mph.
Shaken, I got out of the car and paid him, but I was so rattled I forgot the tip, so he tried to run me down again as he backed out of the driveway. Then he floored the cab as he headed down the street. That’s when I heard a loud “clunk,” the screech of brakes and then more swearing, louder this time. I looked down the street and laughed out loud: The cab’s rear bumper was lying in the middle of the road.