Although New York cabbies are legally required to bring you to the outer boroughs, they often refuse. In fact, an undercover investigation from The Taxi and Limousine Commission found that only 50% of drivers are likely to agree to take you off Manhattan.
Such was the case for Michelle and Amy, both 31, who asked driver Paul Efobi to take them across the East River from midtown to Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. When Efobi refused and told them to get out, the two women didn't budge, saying he was required by law to take them. It was then that Efobi, well, kind of lost it.
A cursing cabby flung open the back door of his cab in Midtown and lunged at two young female passengers in a desperate bid to avoid taking them to Bedford-Stuyvesant, a disturbing video shows.
"Oh, my God!" one of the women screams. "Do not touch us! Do not f - - king touch us!"
"You, you have to take us to Brooklyn!"
The irate driver then scampered out the back seat, wildly flailed his arms, and desperately begged other cabs to take his fares off his hands.
"I kept saying, 'You have to. It's the law,' " recounted Michelle, who works for an Internet company. "He kept screaming at us to 'get out, get out,' but we wouldn't."
At one point Efobi told the women they "would be sorry" and sped up Sixth Avenue, erratically driving and calling them "bitches". He then pulled the car over and said his cab was broken and couldn't make the trip to Brooklyn-- a trick the women did not fall for.
Eventually, as you'll see at the end of the video, another cab driver volunteers for the trip to Bed-Stuy and the women sarcastically thank Efobi, promising to get him fired.
It's scary to think what might have happened if the two women hadn't been filming the whole incident or if this hadn't gone down on a crowded midtown street in broad daylight. Maybe the "taxi-cab of tomorrow" should be equipped with cameras?