Benjamin Disraeli - Taxi Driver 1976 - Frankie Boyle TV - Scam City TV - Collateral 2004 - The League of Gentlemen TV - Carry on Cabby 1963 - Fred Allen - Victor Gray - Tonight: The Secrets of the Taxi Wars TV - New York: America's Busiest City TV - The Knowledge: The World’s Toughest Taxi Test TV - Predator: Catching the Black Cab Rapist TV -
The gondola of London. Benjamin Disraeli, Lothair, 1870, re London cabs
May 10th. Thank God for the rain which has helped wash away the garbage and trash off the sidewalks. I’m workin’ long hours now, six in the afternoon to six in the morning. Sometimes even eight in the morning, six days a week. Sometimes seven days a week. It’s a long hustle but it keeps me real busy. I can take in three, three fifty a week. Sometimes even more when I do it off the meter. All the animals come out at night – whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets. I go all over. I take people to the Bronx, Brooklyn, I take ’em to Harlem. I don’t care. Don’t make no difference to me. It does to some. Some won’t even take spooks. Don’t make no difference to me. Taxi Driver 1976 starring Robert De Niro & Jodie Foster & Harvey Keitel & Cybill Shepherd & Albert Brooks & Leonard Harris & Peter Boyle & Harry Northup & Martin Scorsese & Victor Argo et al, director Martin Scorsese
Each night when I return the cab to the garage, I have to clean the cum off the back seat. Some nights, I clean off the blood. ibid.
Twelve hours of work and I still can't sleep. Damn. Days go on and on. They don’t end. ibid.
She appeared like an angel; out of this filthy mess she is alone. ibid.
This city here is like an open sewer you know. It’s full of filth and scum. ibid. him to Palantine
You’re in Hell. And you’re going die in Hell. ibid. him to her
You talkin’ to me? ibid.
You know who I felt sorry for in the Pandemic? Black cab drivers, furloughed on 80% of the nine grand a year that they declare. Frankie Boyle’s New World Order s5e1, BBC 2021
Not all taxicabs in Prague are playing by the same rules. Scam City s1e2: Prague, National Geographic 2012
They call it longhauling: when the taxis take unsuspecting tourists on the scenic route. Scam City s1e9: Las Vegas
Be very careful about taxis in this city. Scam City s2e2: Mexico City
Express kidnapping carried out by bogus taxi drivers. ibid.
He fell from up there on the motherfucking cab. Shit. I think he’s dead. Collateral 2004 starring Tom Cruise & Jamie Foxx & Jason Statham & Jada Pinkett Smith & Mark Ruffalo & Peter Berg & Bruce McGill & Irma P Hall & Barry Shabaka Henley & Richard T Jones et al, director Michael Mann, cab driver
I can’t drive you around while you’re killing people, man. ibid.
Foxx: What are you?
Cruise: Indifferent. ibid.
I do this for a living. ibid.
Hello, Bab’s cabs. The League of Gentlemen: Love Comes To Royston Vasey s1e5, Bab, BBC 1999
I want to be a taxi driver ... The boys always called me Pint Pot. Carry on Cabby 1963 starring Hattie Jacques & Sid James & Kenneth Connor & Charles Hawtrey & Esma Cannon & Liz Fraser & Bill Owen & Judith Furse & Jim Dale & Milo O’Shea Cyril Chamberlain & Amanda Barrie et al, director Gerald Thomas
The first thing that strikes a visitor to Paris is a taxi. Fred Allen
A tax-car whore out at Iver
Would do the round trip for a fiver
– Quite reasonable, too,
For a sightsee, a screw,
And a ten-shilling tip to the driver. Victor Gray
The taxi wars: the Californian tech giant trying to take over our streets. And the cabbies fight back. Tonight: The Secrets of the Taxi Wars, ITV 2015
There are 20,000 Uber cabs in London alone. ibid.
There are thirteen and a half thousand yellow cabs on the streets of New York. New York: America’s Busiest City, BBC 2016
For 350 years the black cab has been a British institution. But with the rise of sat navs and minicabs including Uber now outnumbering black cabs four to one, what is it that sets the cabbie apart from the rest? To join the cabbie’s exclusive ranks candidates must pass one of the hardest exams in the world – the Knowledge of London. Every year 7,000 men and women take on the challenge taking an average of four years to pass this extraordinary test. Only 30 survive to the end. Every single one of the capital’s 25,000 streets and 100,000 landmarks must be learned in a remarkable feat of memory. The Knowledge: The World’s Toughest Taxi Test, Channel 4 2017
Anyone can apply to be a cabbie. ibid.
While moonlighting in Bournemouth John Warboys was perfecting a method of spiking drinks he offered to women he picked up in his black cab. The desired effect of the drugged cocktail was to incapacitate them. Predator: Catching the Black Cab Rapist, Channel 5 2021
Serial rapist John Warboys assaulted over 100 women in the back of his black cab. After the rape of the student in July 2007 Warboys began to keep a diary in which he wrote a defence to use if he was ever questioned again. In his home were almost 200 pages of densely written notes centred around his attack on the student. ibid.