Cab Tales...The Chase

Most nights, (12 hour shifts) are routine. From time to time, that changes. One night, I got called to a bar on Appleway, where an off duty bartender from another business needed a cab.

When I arrived, the situation was a little more complicated than that. A woman that had apparently been abused, was in the bar with her domestic partner, and wanted to escape.

After talking the situation over with me, the off duty bartender arranged for the guy to be blocked from pursuing us while I loaded the woman into the cab. It started out alright, but as we approached the cab, the man dodged the blockers and headed for us.

We got in the cab, locked the doors and left. Shortly thereafter, he followed, trying to stop and capture my passenger, which wasn't going to happen. I got on my radio to ask for police assistance and headed down town. We stayed on the freeway and main arterials so that we didn't need to stop at a light.

After being assured that the police were going to rendevous with us shortly, I headed down to Mullan going East toward the police station. Just in time, I remembered there are never police officers at the station during the night.

Keeping my dispatcher aware of my intended route, I hopped back up to Sherman going East. At I-90 and Sherman I got back on the freeway toward 4th street. I was told to exit at 4th where police would meet me. Got off...Nary a flashing light in sight.

The guy following us almost crashed me at the 4th & Appleway intersection, as I was turning left. Finally, up popped a police car which pulled him over in the parking lot of the Sunset Bar, right where we started from.

Several weeks later, I was transporting a guy whose car had broken down. He started telling me about the chase, and how he got a DUI out of it. He also mentioned that it was one of our cabs that was involved. I grinned, and admitted it was me, and explained that regardless of who was right or wrong, once a passenger gets in our cab, we protect them. He allowed that he had been a damn fool, which I agreed with.

Any other time, all I would have needed to do was exceed the speed limit by 10 MPH and police would have been all over me...