“I Knew I Would Never Drive a Taxi Again”
For the past four months, an anonymous San Franciscan calling himself Driver 8 has been sharing his view from inside the taxi industry—and why it has struggled to face up to the threat of Uber.
Now, in the final instalment, he explains the moment that pushed him over the edge and sent him from a taxi stalwart to a rideshare driver, and what it cost:
I wasn’t the first, and I surely wouldn’t be the last. But that didn’t make me feel any better about it. There were people who I’d come to care about, good people, people that I counted among my genuine friends, who would be deeply disappointed by my treachery. Perhaps it had simply taken me way too long — and even a stint in rehab — to finally accept that I couldn’t spend my life trying to live up to other people’s expectations.
It’s an honest, open appraisal of the difficulties of driving for a living—and a moment when he steps out from behind the mask.
