We've all been there — it's raining out, you have somewhere to go, your buddy doesn't want to ride bikes because of the aforementioned rain, so you sack up and hail a cab, prepared to fork over a mini-forturne for a short 10 block ride. This was the case last night as Shmindsay* and I hopped in a cab at 19th and Valencia on our way up to Cafe du Nord. Alas, this was not to be your a-typical cab ride; little did we know that behind the wheel was a cab driver with a serious anger management problem and a dislike for cyclists.

Granted, the cyclist did not have lights on his bike, and it was an honest accident. The cab driver came within centimeters of ending this cyclists life, and naturally, the cyclist was pissed. Words were exchanged between the driver and the cyclist, and then the unthinkable: THE CAB DRIVER SLAMS ON THE GAS AND TRIES TO RUN THE CYCLIST DOWN. The cyclist is screaming at the cabbie, we're in the backseat screaming at the cabbie, and he won't stop. The cyclist maneuvers himself next to the cab and takes a swing at the cab driver and connects. Now the cabbie is super pissed and tries to run him down again, this time by repeatedly throwing the car in reverse then forward again. At this point Shmindsay and I bail out of the cab by doing a barrel roll (literally) and watch the scene unfold. The cyclist is trying to get to the sidewalk out of harms way and the cabbie is still trying to run him over. All parties involved are screaming at each other, I'm frantically writing down license plate, cab number, anything I can get.

After about 5 minutes the cyclist is able to call the cops and the cab driver pulls to the other side of the road and presumably does the same. We stick around, give the cyclist our names and numbers to give to the cops, then decide to walk to rest of the way.

The moral of the story is never take cabs. If you do, ask to see their anger management certificate of completion/marijuana prescription.

*names have been changed to protect those who barrel roll out of moving cabs like a boss/rookie.

[Unrelated topical photo by Hal Bergman]