101 Ways to Get to Work

I live in Tel Aviv and I work in Herzliya. If I had a car and drove on a day with no traffic then I could get to work in less than 15 minutes. Given that I rely on public transportation and go during rush hour, the commute is more like 45 minutes- 1 hour. I can take 1 bus, 2 buses, or my favorite combination: a bus and a “sherut” (shared taxi). These taxis are by far the most dynamic. You know that you will eventually get to your destination, but the how is always a mystery. Today is a great example.

To flag one of these shared taxis you basically stand somewhere near the curb or on the road and flag one down. They will usually stop if they are not full (max. capacity is 10 people) and you are expected to get in and sit down without falling over as the taxi takes off again. Taxi drivers are in constant communication with their colleagues via cell phone and inform each other if there is a traffic jam up ahead.

This morning my driver heard that if he continued straight he would hit traffic so he decided to turn right and go on the highway. After turning he saw that his direction of choice was equally jammed up so he made a u-turn and went towards the beach to take another side road. Of course, everyone else was listening to the same traffic report this morning and decided to take the same road. We finally reached a light where we had to turn left to make it back on course. My driver saw that if we were to sit in traffic, like everyone else, it would take us at least 20 minutes to pass this light. Instead, he swerved right, around 3 lanes of traffic and created a fourth lane, which in his mind was the: “I’m a taxi driver and have special rights” lane. He then proceeded to turn left and cut 3 lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic to make it back on course.

The best part of this whole affair was this woman sitting behind me who was blatantly lying to her boss telling him that she was sitting on the high way stuck in traffic because they closed off one of the lanes and she wasn’t sure when she was going to make it to work.

I wonder if part of the test to get a license to drive one of these taxis is to see how arrogant you can be and how many honks you can illicit in 1 run. I am just waiting to an equally enjoyable ride home.