Dmitry Samarov (Samarov)

Posts by Samarov

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  I Hate Being in a Car

  I had a realization yesterday while stuck in gridlock in my Enterprise rental: I hate being in cars now. I …
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  Traffic Stop

  I wonder what rideshare drivers' experiences are like with the police? Is it any better than it is for cabbies? …
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  "For Amusement Only"

  He weighed an easy four hundred pounds. More weekday afternoons than not, he'd pull a chair up to one of …
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  Found a Unicorn—A rideshare driver who listens to passengers' directions (though only as a the last resort.)

  Yesterday, my friend Kelly texted me asking for some help moving boxes. Her place is across town and it was …
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  Yellow Cab Garage becomes "Happy Place"

  I rode by the old Yellow Cab garage the other day, where I picked up the cars I drove for …
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  Nav System Slavery

  The other day, I did a thing I rarely do—I took a rideshare ride. To be clear, nothing has changed …
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  Fictionalized

  I never expected to be working on a TV show, much less one that’s based on my own life, but …
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  Greetings

  Another excerpt from Hack: Stories from a Chicago Cab (University of Chicago Press)   A raised hand generates an irresistible magnetic …
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  It's time to call Rideshare what it is: Taxi

  Riding my bike around Chicago these days I'm always wary of cars pulled over, idling by the curb, or, more …
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  Drivers at the Cab Garage

  This is an excerpt from Hack: Stories from a Chicago Cab.     Some of the drivers hang around the garage …
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  Continuing Education

  Another excerpt from Where To? I arrive at Yellow Cab Headquarters at Cermak and Wabash about 9 am for the …
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  Nobody's Angel

  Jack Clark is a Chicago cabbie who's been writing and singing of many, many years. His best-known book is a …
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  Martin Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER and Me

  This is an excerpt from Where To? When I began driving a cab in fall of 1993, Taxi Driver provided …
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  Allan Koss's Photographs of his Chicago Cab Passengers

  Allan Koss has been a Chicago cabbie for many, many years. He has been a photographer for even longer. Here …
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  First Fare

  This is an excerpt from Where To? My first fare was a businessman in Copley Square who wanted to go …
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  Video Interview from My Last Day Driving a Cab

  Chicago journalist Jack Silverstein shot this video interview on June 23rd, 2012, my last day driving a taxi.
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  Majestic Disorder

  If you like fancy art/lifestyle/fashion magazines from foreign countries, this one from England has a nice six page layout of …
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  Notes from Behind the Wheel

  I never kept a notepad or recorded any of the conversations or scenes I witnessed in all my years behind …
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  The Time I Gave Lou Reed a Cab Ride

  I gave Lou Reed a cab ride. It wasn't a random street hail, Tony Fitzpatrick asked me to come to …
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  Where Hack began

  Before I wrote a book or even a blog entry about my cabbie days, I made a 'zine called Hack. …

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Comments by Samarov

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   3 years ago in  Jitney

  Hey, Lilly. I'm getting by. Thanks for asking.

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   3 years ago in  Jitney

  Not really, because by the time I drove in the early 90s it was already an old timey term. When my first book came out in 2011 I had to explain to a lot of people what it meant. That it wasn't just a shitty writer who just works for money. But the double meaning was intentional :)

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   5 years ago in  Has Uber and Lyft killed the taxi business?

  By ignoring the changing technology, cab companies killed the business themselves. They had it their way so long they had no inkling it would ever change. A halfway functional phone app back in 2012 would've cut Uber et al off at the ankles; instead cab companies kept functioning as if there were still kerosene lamps lining city streets.

  Whining about rideshare  is a bunch of crocodile tears. Time to bury the old cab business and start calling rideshare by its true name: TAXI.

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   5 years ago in  In the Battle of Rideshare Versus Taxi the Driver Always Loses

  Very expensive. Don't remember exactly but you'd pay extra for long-distance and there was no such thing as unlimited minutes. I only used it to contact cab customers.

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   5 years ago in  In the Battle of Rideshare Versus Taxi the Driver Always Loses

  Had a couple different versions of those, for sure. Different time...

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   5 years ago in  So Uber rents cars to drivers now? If it quacks like a duck...

  Quacking is like a tech bro company pretending it's anything different than the same old shit.

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   5 years ago in  So Uber rents cars to drivers now? If it quacks like a duck...

  It's a racket in which the driver loses any way you slice it.

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   5 years ago in  Median Taxi Medallion Price in Chicago Down to $26,500

  Chicago is much cheaper in cost of living so medallions never approached the million mark like NYC.

  
  

  No, I never owned a medallion, nor ever considered buying one. I'm a painter and writer; driving was always just a day-job.

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   5 years ago in  Median Taxi Medallion Price in Chicago Down to $26,500

  300-400k, I think.

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   5 years ago in  Too many Uber drivers? Chicago cabbies and ride-share workers join forces, urge cap on Uber and Lyft cars

  Perhaps. Imagine if you had a restaurant and every day fifty waiters showed up for the ten available shifts. It would be bedlam. That's a bit of what the taxi (or whatever you wanna call it) business is like now. Some sort of organization has to be imposed.

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   5 years ago in  Too many Uber drivers? Chicago cabbies and ride-share workers join forces, urge cap on Uber and Lyft cars

  Every public car service started as an unregulated Wild West chaos the way rideshare is now. Once they're the only game in town they'll be brought under control. There's no other sane alternative.

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   5 years ago in  Too many Uber drivers? Chicago cabbies and ride-share workers join forces, urge cap on Uber and Lyft cars

  Rideshare and cab drivers are in the same boat. The companies which run things are the enemy.

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   5 years ago in  Grinds my gears. Pax who asks for extra stops but not in the app

  You're in the wrong line of work. I'd recommend something with little or no human interaction.

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   5 years ago in  RideGuru Rideshare Survey Results 2018; Forget Tinder and LinkedIn. Ridesharing is the new social centre.

  The most depressing statistic (out of many) is that 89% of respondents don't think rideshare should be regulated. Regulations are the only way this slipshod Wild West "industry" might one day actually become a reliable public transportation option.

  The result that passengers have no preference between taxis and rideshares underscores the point that public cars must be regulated in order to control the rampant abuses of money-grubbing tech-bros who run the technology, clueless drivers who are held to no discernible standards, and entitled riders who act as if the people driving them are indentured servants.

  These results should be cause for alarm, not celebration.

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   5 years ago in  Traffic Stop

  Lets you keep the driver's license but this cop took my Chauffeur's License, which is different. Ridesharers don't need a special license yet, but I have no doubt they will once they're the only game in town.

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   5 years ago in  Traffic Stop

  In Chicago the police will take your driver's license during a traffic stop in order to compel you to appear in court, unless you have a bond card.

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   5 years ago in  "For Amusement Only"

  Well, it's a job with a lot of hazards and unknowns so maybe people attracted to risk and gambling and longshots are attracted to it. 

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   5 years ago in  What do you all think of the new Uber logo?

  Still think they should be called HEIL-O.

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   5 years ago in  Electric scooter use is rising in major cities. So are trips to the emergency room.

  This may be one of the most idiotic fads in recent memory. Anyone who scrapes up their mug joyriding one of these things deserves what they get.

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   5 years ago in  Found a Unicorn—A rideshare driver who listens to passengers' directions (though only as a the last resort.)

  I had a street guide I could consult. Chicago's a grid, so as long as you know how to count you won't get that lost.

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Featured Answers by Samarov