If you drive for a living, why are you the WORST DRIVERS EVER?!

Can someone please explain to me why the taxi drivers on Miami Beach are the WORST DRIVERS ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH!?

Not to be racist but... (cue racism!)

But is it racism if you just don't like people from one nameless country whence most of our cab drivers came? The ones that speak no English, the ones that drive six miles per hour, and the ones that will take you from Lincoln and Alton to Collins and 18th by way of 41st Street, and the ones that NEVER. HAVE. CHANGE. TO. BREAK. A. TWENTY? The ones who are content to sit in traffic on Washington, and the ones who sigh and moan when they're requested to forfeit their .35 per idle 45 seconds and take Drexel or Pennsylvania to go North or South without sitting in gridlock.

The ones whose air conditioning is never on (and is like a breath of warm air when they do finally roll up the windows and crank it up to "low," after much beseeching and kvetching and sweating), the ones who fart in the cab while driving, the ones who subject everyone to Christian talk radio?

WHY?!?!??!?!?

Isn't a cab driver's goal to get you from point A to point B as quickly as possible; to rack up as many fares as possible in an hour because more fares mean more tips? To be on the GO, GO, GO, to get FARES! FARES! FARES! to make MONEY? MONEY? MONEY?

Or am I missing something?

Like did I miss the part of Driver's Ed wherein it's okay, when the rest of the Cabstand is full, just to park in the south-bound lane of a two-lane road waiting for one of the cabs up front to roll out, bringing some ecstasy-addled tramp home from her fling at the Flamingo? Or wherein it's okay to come to a rolling stop at a stop sign and ease out in front of me, while I'm rocketing at a neck-breaking 35 miles per hour down Alton Road (can't go faster - pot holes...), to leiiiiiiiisurelllllyyyyy go 21 miles an hour?

And how is it a good idea to stand in the MIDDLE of the street, yelling over to other cabbies? Can't you yell from INSIDE YOUR CAB, THAT'S ALREADY PARKED IN THE MIDDLE OF A BUSY ROAD?!

One of these days, I'm going to be convicted of vehicular manslaughter murder when I just mow some maroon down on Bay Road in the morning when I'm tryin'a get to work and everyone else is just enjoyin' some 8:45 a.m. relaxation time on the trunk of their cab. Which is parked in the MIDDLE OF BAY ROAD.

I'm sure it's a relatively crappy job sometimes, but everyone's job is crappy sometimes. What I don't understand is the complete disregard for everyone else, and the sense that getting from point A to point B has no urgency. MAKE THAT GREEN LIGHT! TURN RIGHT ON RED! GO! GO! GO!

And either go at least the Speed Limit, or GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY.

Am I the only one who dreads any interaction with cabbies? I don't like being in their warm, slow, springy-suspensioned, sulphurous cabs. And I don't like having to play chicken with an oncoming garbage truck because a cab is fully just double-parked in the middle of the street... with no intention of moving so traffic can clear...

And when did I turn 60?