Vegas Taxis: A New Endangered Species

Riding a Las Vegas taxi was one of the most traumatizing experiences of my life.

See, I was born in New York. I had the [naive] belief that the way of successfully navigating the taxi world in New York was the standard everywhere. So it should come as no surprise when I tell you that my first experience using the dumpster fire that is/was the Las Vegas taxi system was terrible on two fronts.

First, it became VERY evident that the cab system here is not even remotely close to what you would find in New York City. The simple act of actually getting a cab to show up turned into a TWO-HOUR ordeal. Hailing or waving down an empty taxi when you need to go somewhere fast was a fantasy unless you were standing on the Strip.

The second part of this one-two trauma combo was the drivers themselves. I’m not about to launch into a tirade about how all cab drivers sucked because that is absolutely not true. But I also can’t say that a grumpy taxi driver is a rarity.

So, between the difficulty of requesting a cab to the poor customer service, it’s no wonder that the days of taxis are numbered. Uber and Lyft swept in like heroes in cloaks to save us all.

The taxicab is on borrowed time and will soon, thankfully, be a thing of the past. RIP, Las Vegas cabs. We’ll make sure to Uber a ride to your funeral.