Complaint of the Day

I have come to find that the cabs in DC suck. In the middle of the day, especially downtown, cabbies will cut across 3 lanes of traffic the second your arm goes up. But at 2am, you have to beg them to take you home. Here is a typical weekend night: After having 10 cabs roll right on by you, one finally stops. The driver will roll their window down approximately one inch in order to ask "where you going" and unless you give them a satisfactory answer, they drive off. If you are lucky enough to have them actually agree to take you (you would think they were paying you by the attitude), then don't even think about trying to go to more than 1 location. Even though this actually works out better for the cabbie, they do not seem to understand the logic behind it. And then when you are finally able to reach your destination, they seem to think that you are dumb enough not to notice the fact that there are extra fees added on (they are supposed to charge $1 for every passenger after the 1st one, but they usually just add $1 for every person in the cab, and sometimes even add on 50 cents on just for fun).

Is it asking for too much for cabs to have their lights on if they are in service and lights off if they are out service? For them to just pull over and not play 20 questions about where you are headed to and just take you? For them to just charge you the amount that you should be charged? For them not to drive like maniacs on the road trying to get you to said destination? For them to arrive promptly when you call and request a cab? Apparently that is asking too much.

I will say that the system seems to have improved since the days of the zones, when one day your cab ride was $8 and then next day it was $14. Sigh, at least it's improving, right?