City Savvy

For the longest time, I thought I was the worst cab hailer in the world. I soon then realized that I in fact was not the worst cab hailer, but I just didn’t know how to properly flag a cab. But after working in the city for almost two years and living in the city for almost six months, I am happy to say that I finally have it down. I no longer stand on the street corner and wonder why 4,345 cabs speed by me without acknowledging that my hand is in the air. So now that I have it down, I figure I should pass along my knowledge to my 3 blog readers because I still notice that A LOT of people are the worst cab hailers in the world aka they just don’t know how to properly flag a cab…

Okay, so here is how it goes: 

First, you obviously just step into the street to look for a cab. Then to identify the empty and on-duty ones you look at the lights on the roof of the cab. The free ones will ONLY have the middle light on; the taken ones will have no lights on; and the off-duty ones will have the two outer lights on (illuminating the words “off-duty”).  So only raise your arm and attempt to flag a cab when you see the middle light illuminated. Then once a free and on-duty cab sees your arm, I am sure they will scoop you right up and bring you to your destination. Oh, and remember don’t give taxi drivers the address of your destination…give them the cross streets of your destination.

Here is a perfect image that I found on the blog Cup of Joe.

So NYC,

E