Wildest cab ride?

I'll through in one. We were in O'Hare, and had a flight cancellation. The cabbie, clearly a Russian, took us to the hotel on Algonquin Rd just N of Arlington Heights Rd (if you are from the area, you know right where I mean). The cabbie demanded an extra fee since he went "out of O'Hare". My colleague paid the fee, instead of calling the police. I should have cursed the jerk out in Russian.

We took a cab rom Naples airport to our hotel near the waterfront. He stated the rate but we stated the fixed rate and he said OK. He was weaving in and out of traffic driving through congested back streets and making the sign for crazy to describe the other drivers when he was the crazy one.
Quite an introduction to Naples!

Our "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" as we jokingly refer to it was the cab ride to the airport in Rome after our RS Best of Italy tour. We had an early, early flight and the driver was going 170km/hr in a tiny car. The road was empty so he floored it. We either were going to arrive quickly or die!

Several years later we took another cab ride to the same airport. The driver was professional, had a normal car, and drove regular speed...it was almost a disappointment- ha!

A cab ride in Europe can not begin to compare to one in China (and I suspect much of SE Asia). We had one in Shenyang, China we will never forget. This was about 10 years ago when cars were not as numerous as they are now. We were weaving between cars, trucks, buses, bicycles, donkey carts, scooters, pedestrians, bicycles pulling carts and every other sort of conveyance. No semblance of order. At one time we noticed our driver was on the wrong side of the street. When questioned (we had a Chinese student with us) he told us traffic lanes and lights are just suggestions and need not be followed.

I was going to share my early morning cab ride from the Milan train station to Malpensa, but it's pretty much identical to Jean's Rome story. I remember thinking the G-forces were greater in that cab than they were when our plane took off.

No wild taxi rides, but hubby and I did take one of the shuttle vans in Rome. It was our first trip anywhere - and we chose Rome as our initial destination. We had flown overnight into LHR, then on to Rome. We were going to try and figure out the metro, asked directions at one of the shuttle van kiosks and of course - they did what they are supposed to - convinced us to take the shuttle (and honestly, it wasn't a whole lot more, and was right to the door of our B&B and we were jet lagged). My husband somehow ended up in the passengers seat up front and he started out thinking the Rome traffic was funny, but he got more and more worried as we went - cars cutting each other off, scooters weaving in and out with inches to spare - compared to our very rule oriented driving here, it was an eye opener.

Also remembering joining up with a van tour at the Naples train stn up Mt Vesuvius - another one of those white shuttle vans - with 10 people but only 9 seats - one (un)lucky guy got to sit on a folding chair that the driver pulled out, and those of us sitting behind had to brace him a few times as we went up the steep slopes of the mtn.

Tijuana on a daytrip from San Diego -- I seem to remember driving through someone's back yard, and there were chickens involved ....

Japan. In a cab playing "chicken" with another cab as to who would get to drive in the lane. Our cab " won".

A friend and I were taking a taxi to the Rome airport. Neither of us speak much Italian and things were moving along fine as we were cruising down the freeway en route to the airport. All of a sudden, the driver takes an exit that is clearly in the middle of nowhere and starts heading down this side road. My friend and I both silently begin to panic and she squeezes my leg as if to say "Where is this maniac taking us?" Both of us plotted how we would fight him off if needed and then he got back on the freeway and finished the ride to the airport. It made for a good story and laugh later but we were slightly terrified in the moment.

Um, yes, I second (third? fourth?) the insanely fast Rome airport taxi ride in a van with no seat belts. It was scarier than my trip in Jamaica where my driver pulled over to do a drug deal.

If it's wild in the sense of speed, weaving in and out, sudden turns and hitting the brakes, etc then I would say it was the one in Warsaw in 2001 when we took the cab from Centralna to the old town where the apt was. That ride fits the description and definition.

Rome.

We arrived early in the morning and told the driver our hotel. Great. And at first, the drive wasn't that wild? A little fast, sure. A little heavy on the brakes when we came up too fast behind another, yes. But I was good until we passed the Colosseum and then - wow. What a difference.

Suddenly our speed radically increased. We were driving up alleys that didn't seem wide enough for one car, much less us and the traffic going the other direction. We drove between cars and nearly sideswiped a nun trying to cross the street. I swear I never prayed as much as I did in that taxi ride, and my main prayer was 'please don't let us kill anyone on our way to the hotel'.

Finally we reached our hotel. I was so grateful to be alive (and had seen no fatalities in our wake), that I gave the driver a ridiculous tip.

Late night in Istanbul from a restaurant back to the hotel. The driver overtook a very lengthy queue of traffic in the turn lane at high speed in order to turn left. In London that would cause road rage but there nobody seemed to care. (Also, anyone know why so many taxis in Istanbul are Seats? Did the company offer a special deal?)

This happened to a friend of mine from Chicago. Many years ago, she landed at the Tel Aviv airport in the middle of the night. She was just 19, going to stay with relatives and see the country for the first time. She had been told that bargaining is part of life in Israel, especially for taxis. She didn't know that there are flat rates from the airport. The driver told her the price was 15 lira, she insisted it was too much. He finally took pity on this young innocent and agreed to take her for 12 lira. On the way, she told him he was going much too fast and he needed to slow down. He replied: The trip is 15 minutes and costs 15 lira. You are only paying 12 lira, so the trip will only be 12 minutes. (The price difference was about $1.)

I now take that same trip whenever I return from a trip abroad. The driver offers me the choice of using the meter or taking the fixed price. Since my returns are usually in the middle of the night, there's no traffic and the meter could be a bit cheaper, but I always opt for the fixed rate - the drive is always faster :-)

Sat in the front seat of a cab in Rome during the middle of the afternoon rush hour. At the time I couldn't help but wonder if the cabbies were in cahoots with the wine business as I certainly needed several glasses after that ride.

Mine was also in Rome. Been so many years ago I can't remember where we were going to/from, but I do remember being terrified!

OK, this may not have been a wild ride but it was fast, and scary for other reasons. This topic brought to mind my very first cab ride in Europe on my very first trip out of the U.S. at age 21. A group of college friends getting into the cab at Frankfurt airport and zooming away. Of course, all the signs being in German was culture shock, not to mention that the taxi was going insanely faster than any taxi in the U.S. It was a "we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto" moment. I actually felt that I wanted to go home in those first few hours. But, needless to say, 6 weeks and 6 countries later, we felt like international travel pros and were planning what would be many more wonderful trips to Europe.

San Carlos de Barilocha, Argentina. Staying in the city and going to the nearby ski area of Cerro Catedral. First day took the public bus, which was crowded and slow. Then someone suggested taking a cab, which shared among 3 people would be quicker at the same price, so we did. One person exclaimed " I can speak Spanish", so he turned to the driver and blurted, "Muy rapido!" The driver then pulled into the oncoming traffic lane, punched the accelerator, and drove the rest of the way in that lane, including hills and curves, only going back to the proper lane when another car coming the other way challenged us. We arrived in one piece, payed the driver, and thought about beating the "Spanish speaker" to death, but stifled that instinct.

Taking a cab in Rome from the airport to the apartment I rented near Santa Maria Maggiore had to be the wildest ride ever for us. It may have been our first (but not last) cab ride in Europe and we now know that we'd NEVER drive a car or a scooter in Rome.

Remembered another one -- first trip to Europe, we had flown in to Stanstead on a 20-hour barebones charter flight from Oakland that would make RyanAir look like Emirates. Got in the taxi, we're driving to the hotel and here comes a huge truck driving right at us. All I could think was "we've been planning this trip for four years ...and we're going to die in the first fifteen minutes!" And then, of course, the truck passed by us because we were on the LEFT side of the road.

Chicago....going 50 MPH down Michigan Ave in the middle of the day.

Oakland to SFO...clear traffic, early morning, cabbie was double booked. Thought I was going to die.

Chicago...declined your ride buddy...I'll walk the mile instead...driver could not waste his time to put my bag in the trunk...just popped the hood.

After those experiences, I'll take public transit almost any day.

I hate taking taxis, you never know what you'll get.

My wife and I took a taxi from Rome to the airport in 2001 and the driver was doing about 120 mph on the freeway. At least it seemed that way.

We had a driver in Lisbon that was seriously drunk in 2008, but did not realize until we were already in the cab.

Cab in Paris in 2000 broke down in the middle lane in pouring rain, somehow we got where we were going.

Taxi driver in Nice in 2003 charged 15 Euros to go four blocks. Profiteering when he saw the look in my wife's eyes--she was not going to walk anywhere after our harrowing experience dropping off the rental car.

At one company where I worked for many years--when landing alone in Taipei along you got a luxury sedan with seatbelts. When arriving with others, a minivan with no seatbelt. Fifty minute drive with no safety restraints in very busy traffic. At least drivers there were more safe than back home, I guess.

Yeah, I try to avoid taxis when I can.

In defense of cab drivers- In New Orleans we had a cabbie recognize us from a few days earlier, and he come back after he'd dropped his passengers. He said he thought we might be in trouble. We almost were. We'd gone too far from busy streets, and a guy was following us.

Also in NOLA, a guy had just picked us up, and was speeding along Decatur, which was full of pedestrians. I yelled that he needed to slow it down or drop us off and not get paid. He slowed.

The wildest cab ride was in Delhi. I followed the guide book instructions to buy/prepay for a cab upon landing but was still accosted by numerous "indie" cabbies, including some who clearly lied about accepting my voucher. However, upon getting into the proper cab we proceeded to do "normal" Delhi driving. Going 60 miles an hour about 1 car length from the car in front, running lights that had just turned red, weaving in an out with no room to spare and braking at the last second. It was quite the experience. While it wasn't technically "wild" I was tired and my ankle hurt while walking around Paris. I decided to take a cab back to the hotel which was near Notre Dame. I even showed it to the cabbie on the map. Well, he was apparently a new cabbie and took me to Sacré-Cœur. I told him it was the wrong cathedral and he started driving....all over town. After about 20 minutes, he asked to see the map again. I showed him and he plotted a route. While I thought it was a trick to increase the fare, he volunteered that it was his mistake and gave me a fair price for what it would have cost me just to go to Notre Dame in the first place. As I left the cab, he also gave me a box of chocolate and apologized.

Our wildest cab ride was this summer from Rome Ciampino to the Piazza Navona area. I knew we were in for a wild ride when the cab driver exited the road to avoid a red light and then merged back on at a high rate of speed. We probably passed 20 or so cars along the way, on a two lane road. We shared the cab with an Italian who sat in the front. When we dropped him off, he said, "I'm here safe, good luck to you!" It was an entertaining (and slightly terrifying) welcome to Rome.

Dominican Republic: On the way to the resort the taxi driver suddenly pulls over, grabs something from his glove compartment and as he is getting out of the car says something like "I hope you don't mind I have to stop for a second I just saw someone I was looking for." Before any answer, he jumps out of the cab and starts yelling at this guy and they start to have a heated argument. Cabbie pulls out a gun and starts waving it around threatening the guy but does not shoot. Then he gets back in the cab, puts the gun in the glove compartment, and says something like sorry for the delay, that guy owes me money and I am tired of messing (except he used an expletive) around with him and the next time I see that SOB I am going to shoot him. And then he drove directly to the resort.

Flatbush, Brooklyn. Needed to go to a museum which was far from the subway with my parents, who were visiting me. Got off the subway, found a cab, got in, closed the doors, and told him where we needed to go. It's not a bad neighborhood at all. He didn't really know where it was and didn't want to go, so he told us he couldn't take us and to please get out. I firmly told him he had to take us. We were already in the cab and the doors were closed. (We have a law...) I had a map pulled up on my phone and so he had no excuse. We went back and forth a few times and finally he shut up and drove us to the museum. My parents were cringing back into the seat.

That's when I knew I was a real New Yorker.

Tuk tuk in Udaipur, India.