Taxi Cab Wisdom

Here is a little taxi cab information for all my New Yorkers, and people visiting the city.

The driver has a special license called a Hack License. (S)he gets it from the Taxi and Limousine Commission (the TLC). Hack licenses have a number. This number is sequential. It started with the first license (at the dawn of time) 00001. It has been going up ever since. You can tell how long a driver has been driving (on that license) by looking at the first 2 digits. This is useful cause say it is Halloween weekend and you want to go home to Queens (or the Upper East Side) and your cabbie pretends that he does not know how to get there, cause there are more lucrative short term fares around. You can say "so your hack starts with a 41. That means you have been driving for what 20 years? At least 17 right?" This will shut them up and get you where you want to go.

Below is DeNiro's Hack License from 1975. He got it when researching for "Taxi Driver."


The numbers do not correlate to years or anything other then the sequence in which the license was issued. If you ask drivers how long they have been driving and look at the first 2 numbers you can get pretty good at guessing.

Guessing correctly at the start of the ride has gotten me some pretty interesting stories. First they are impressed cause so few people know this. Sometimes they think you are from the TLC and are on their best behavior. Other times they open up to you. One time I had a cabbie that had been driving for 30+ years, owned 2 medallions, a house in Brooklyn and another in Haiti. Turns out that he had well over $2 million in assets. He was semi retired and lived between here and Haiti.

Another great thing about chatting with you cabbie is that if (s)he has been on the road a long time (s)he might know a quicker way for you to get home.