‘Taxi’washing

I’ve taken two taxis in the city of Houston, Texas in the past week. My experiences in both were pretty much exactly the same. I get into the taxi, tell the driver where I want to go, the driver turns on the meter, locks the doors and then says “so how do I get there”. Since I have no idea, this is the beginning of 5 minutes (which I am paying for) of the driver I’m guessing pretending now to recongnize any of the streets I mention and then asking me if I can take out my iphone and look for it on the map and show him.

I have taken my fair share of taxis around the world and to me the definition of a taxi is a car that has a driver in it that is knowledgeable about the roads in that particular location and that if you give them an address their primary job is to know where that address is (or find out themselves) and then get you there in the shortest amount of time possible. Seems that is not the case here in Houston. In the world of sustainability if you look green, talk green, smell green but aren’t actually green in any way that is called greenwashing. So perhaps this is ‘taxi’washing?

Worst thing is that at the end he expected me to leave a much bigger tip than I was prepared to leave. Paying extra for service that wasn’t rendered. Sounds a lot like greenwashing to me!

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