I took a cab this morning and my first impression was it was a very clean cab (can’t get cleaner both inside and out). I gave him a crosstown location. He tried crossing on one street, saw it was blocked, so he backed up to try crossing on a lower street (this saved time). He sees a nice Audi A8L with plenty of stickers in the back window (ski mountain stickers). He comments and says 'how can someone do that to an Audi? I laughed and said I’ve seen stranger things, but being a car guy I did agree. Now that he had made conversation with me he proceeds to ask what I thought of the current US healthcare system (after another few minutes of driving). I gave him my opinion. He then says, it’s so expensive. He complains about his arm and says he can’t afford to see the doctor because the system is all about money. He then says, in Montreal that wouldn’t be the case (at which point I almost told him to move there if he felt so strongly). He then talks about his mortgage, and how he had 2 (5yr and 30yr). He was trying to refinance the 5yr as he couldn’t make payments but the bank wouldn’t refinance. He then said he had 1 month before foreclosure, but that he was going to stop making payments unless they refinanced anyway. He then talked about how the system was corrupt and that he was just hoping to make enough to save and go back to his home in the carribean and live a comfortable life. So, in summary. Very pleasant cab ride (clean, fast, efficient). Most likely the guy was trying to sell me some BS sob story in hopes of getting a higher tip. Maybe part of it was true, maybe not. Do you appreciate the efficiency of the ride? Do you appreciate that he tried to sell you on a story to get more tip? Do you get offended that he tried to pawn some BS on you, or if it’s true are you offended by his views on society? Do you: -Stiff him on the tip -Tip normally -Tip higher than average I’ll post what I did in a bit. I’m just curious to see what you would do and why. In case you want an actual amount the ride was ~$10.60 if that changes anything for you guys. IBTooLongDidn’tRead
I’ll keep it to $12 as it was a short ride.
“So, in summary. Very pleasant cab ride (clean, fast, efficient). Most likely the guy was trying to sell me some BS sob story in hopes of getting a higher tip. Maybe part of it was true, maybe not.” I’m surprised that most cabbies dont strike up conversations more - especially if they have sob stories (BS or not). Most people would probably tip more if the cabbie was friendly and conversant (especially tourists) - you would think they catch on to this. I say you tipped him higher
I round up to where it’s approximately 10%, and only tip more or less for something that’s pretty impressive, good or bad. Rounding up to $11 is a 40 cent tip, which seems puny. Rounding up to $12 is $1.40, which sounds about right.
Tip normally
Jscott24 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I’m surprised that most cabbies dont strike up > conversations more - especially if they have sob > stories (BS or not). Most people would probably > tip more if the cabbie was friendly and conversant > (especially tourists) - you would think they catch > on to this. That’s true. It’s not a conscious decision most of the time, but I’d say I probably tip higher if the cabbies are conversational. Sometimes its obnoxious when they are talking loudly into a bluetooth headset in some foreign language where they sound like they are shouting at their wives or best friends or lovers or children or senator or whatnot. It’s not the foreign language part that gets to me really, it’s the shouting part.
I’d probably leave $13 based on his efficiency getting you to your destination and the condition of the vehicle. If the cab was a POS or he was clearly not efficient in getting you to your destination I’d leave $12. Sob stories earn zero points with me and could potentially reduce the tip if they lay it on thick.
I tip more for chatty drivers in general. I’d have given him $12/13 and a cheery thank you, sure he’d be happy to get any tip.
I don’t tip taxi drivers, although some people give a tip here rounding up the sum. So it would be 11 dollars - the same tip as in the restaurants. I am talking about Madrid, and as I think, Spain in general
This doesnt sound like a NYC taxi driver. I would tip normally. Do you think you are going to stop his foreclosure with you $3 tip???
$13 is normal for me and i’d give that. i’m assuming you dropped him $15.
mik82 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > This doesnt sound like a NYC taxi driver. I would > tip normally. Do you think you are going to stop > his foreclosure with you $3 tip??? Just to clarify, it was a NYC driver…and I never stated what tip I gave, yet.
I hit credit card > 15% every time maybe 20% for this guy? I give 25% on special occasions, like the other week when I got up at 5am for a 6am flight and made it b/c the cabbie went ludicrous speed to get to laguardia
I would leave $12, maybe $13. The sob stories where they lay it on thick generally reduce the tip. Everyone has problems and if you think hard enough we all have sob stories. Deal with it, but the fact he was conversational is a plus in my book. It sounds like he was not really whining but found a way to fit the sob stories into the normal conversation and so it would not reduce the tip.
I would tip $13. Story would not influence my tip.
Seems like most people would tip slightly more than normal based on the quality of the ride. The story didn’t seem to affect the decision, and if anything, would have a negative effect. JScott24 & MLA pretty much hit the nail on the head. I tipped higher for 2 reasons. 1) Quality of the ride 2) The story Whether he was trying to be genuinely conversational or trying to lay some BS on me doesn’t really matter, I appreciated the effort. I tried to pay with CC, and I was going to tip 25%, but the reader wasn’t working, so I gave him a $20 and rounded the tip up and left $14.
mik82 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > This doesnt sound like a NYC taxi driver. I would > tip normally. Do you think you are going to stop > his foreclosure with you $3 tip??? If his story were true, yes I do think it would. If he had this effect on me, I’m sure I wouldn’t be the only one in the world, and it’s likely if he consistently told the story he’d have more money than another driver who didn’t (assuming all else equal). …not to mention, I have no clue what his mortgage payment is…for all I know it could be $3 (BTW, you were really close with the amount of tip I gave, nice guess).
If I have to give an extra dollar or an extra tip to anyone that has a sad story, then I will be the one who’s broke. You probably gave him $3.40 to round it up.
mik82 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > If I have to give an extra dollar or an extra tip > to anyone that has a sad story, then I will be the > one who’s broke. You probably gave him $3.40 to > round it up. …I’ll skip next week’s lotto drawing;)
I once took a taxi to LaGuardia and most of the trip was spent in silence, but while we were crossing the Triborough Bridge out of the blue the driver started dissing on Bush and concluded his rant with a “F*CK BUSH!” and goes “you are probably a Bush supporter so I’ll stop hatin’ now.” I’m not a Bush supporter but the dude’s anger was sufficiently scary for me to consider calling the FBI in case he was heading up a NYC-based Islamic terrorist cell (not likely since he was a black guy with no foreign accent, but you never know with the Nation of Islam running around). I think I actually tipped him an extra buck or two and told him my flight number in the off chance that he knew of a plan to blow it up and would then call off the terrorist plot due to my generosity.