Cab #5746

Date Taken: 1/19/07
From:: River North
To:: Roscoe Village via Bucktown

The Cab: Clean and comfy, with working restraint devices and an open thief window. No radio or cell phone to detract from the experience. Overall, another fine example of Chicago cabbie workplace pride.

The Driver: Now here's where #5746 starts to set itself apart. This guy's a talker, and the sheer breadth of topics on which he is willing to expound is truly astonishing. Electric cars? Sure. Traffic patterns in the city and near suburbs? You got it. But consider this. How many service employees would be willing to float well-informed yet controversial moon landing hoax conspiracy theories in mixed company? That takes guts, my friend, and Driver #5746 has them in spades.

The Driving: Chicago doesn't present too many opportunities for route selection flair. It's basically a big grid with a handful of diagonal lines bisecting it. So imagine the collective surprise of your reviewer and her companion when Driver #5746 executed not one but two short cuts on the same run. Speed was efficient without being nausea-inducing. He even showed an aptitude for long-range driving in reverse. Pretty impressive on the whole.

Overall rating: 4.6 extended arms. I'm giving him an extra tenth of an arm for knowing about the Van Allen radiation belts.

- Natasha Julius

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