If you are catching a taxi and are the sole passenger, are you more likely to sit in the front next to the driver or would you sit in the back seat?
Taxi - back or front seat?
- Thread starter Miss Chicken
- Start date
I always sit in the back seat. I assume that's what you're supposed to do, unless there's so many passengers that there's only room in the front.
I sit in the front for two reasons a) it is easier for me to get in and out of the taxi when I have the extra leg room and b) it is easier to speak to the driver.
Many Australians sit in the front seat but that might be a cultural thing.
One driver says he often prefers it because it means he caanot be attacked from behind.
Many Australians sit in the front seat but that might be a cultural thing.
One driver says he often prefers it because it means he caanot be attacked from behind.
I've never even heard of sitting in the front seat of a taxi barring maybe the extreme situation where the back-seat is going to be full.
I used to sit in the front seat when I lived in a small town. I continued the practice when I moved to a very small city. As soon as I moved to a larger centre, I made the move to the back seat (I had been given some strange/unfriendly looks from the drivers, so I figured that sitting in the front was strictly "small town").
^This. The few times I've taken a taxi, the driver opens-- or at least unlocks-- the back door; there is no option WHERE you sit. You sit in the back, period, unless the back seats are already full.
I just think it'd be awkward ridding shot-gun with the cab driver. Just looking over at him like, "Sup? Wanna grab some Arby's?"
I have never had a driver open a door. Occasionally they don't even get out to open the boot/trunk if the customer has something to put in it and the customer does it all themselves.
The only time I have known a cab door to be locked is one News Year Eve when I was catching a cab home from the Casino and the driver urged myself and my friends to lock our doors as we drove through the city centre. He said that if we didn't the drunks would try to climb in, as no cabbie in their right mind services the inner city on New Years Eve. He said it was the one day of the year when drivers could be as fussy as they wanted to be about who they took for fares.
The only time I have known a cab door to be locked is one News Year Eve when I was catching a cab home from the Casino and the driver urged myself and my friends to lock our doors as we drove through the city centre. He said that if we didn't the drunks would try to climb in, as no cabbie in their right mind services the inner city on New Years Eve. He said it was the one day of the year when drivers could be as fussy as they wanted to be about who they took for fares.
^Cabbies get robbed and killed here fairly regularly. Those doors are f***ing LOCKED. They only unlock them when you are about to get in or out.
That seems like it would be incredibly easy for the police to catch them.
Same here. In Chicago they'd never let you sit up front. Always in back, behind the bulletproof glass
I always sit in the front and I always visibly type in the taxi driver's reg number (which is displayed) into a text which I fake send. It is normal to sit in the front here. There is no glass dividing the front and back.
Who would want to sit up front in a strange car, next to a driver you don't know, anyway? You never know who's driving that taxi you just got into. Especially in the larger cities.
When I lived in Flagstaff (about 60000 people), I would sit in the front. Here in Phoenix, I will sit in the back...though about the only time I take a cab in Phoenix is to get home from the airport, and usually you can find a limo driver who will take you home for the same price as the cab.
New York is definitely one of the cities where you don't sit in the front.
I ask to sit on the driver's lap.
I guess here in Australia we know that the driver has gone through the accreditation process which includes a nationwide criminal history check plus I live in a reasonably small city (200,000 population).
