When you split a taxi with someone who is going to a separate location, you pay the fare to your destination, and the other passenger takes it from there? Do you tip separately?
I’m asking because I suspect fare #1 is baring most of the expense that shows up on the meter.
Any experience from regular riders in big cities would be appreciated.
I usually just give my co-passenger some fair portion of the fare plus a tip and assume that he’ll pay the cabbie and give him a decent tip.
I usually don’t do it quite so formally when I do it. But if you really wanted to get technical, wouldn’t it make more sense to split the destination to the first place and then have the second person pay all of it from there? Since presumably, second person would have paid the fare to the whole thing on their own.
The way I figure, if I’m the first person getting out I would have paid the whole fare if I was alone anyway. There’s an additional flag fare for the extra person, so they should pay that and the rest of the fare from my destination to theirs. Besides, the cabbie might have taken a different and potentially cheaper route to the 2nd destination if he hadn’t had to detour to mine first.
So I pay the fare up to my stop plus usually 10% tip, keeping mind that the total on the meter would have been -$1.00 (I think) if I had been alone. I give the money to the other passenger, to be paid at the end of the trip.
In my social group, whomever gets out first hands over to the other passenger the amount currently on the meter sans tip because that person would have paid the price on the meter anyhow - but they get to save on the tip. Any other stops before the final, tack the difference between the last fare, and current sans tip - and the final passenger pays the tip. Even though the first passenger may pay a bit more, they still don’t have to cover a tip.
Unlike some other cities, in NYC there is no additional charge for another person or making another stop, so it is definitely in your best interest NOT to reset the meter after the first person is dropped off. If you did reset the meter, you would be hit with a second start up fee.
You would almost always be splitting a taxi with someone going in your general direction, what we tend to do in my set is estimate the final fare including tip (if you are a New Yorker, this is something you get adept at doing) and then split it in (roughly) the same proportion that the two individual fares would have reflected. I think for many people, it would be considered good form to do a 50/50 split even if the actual difference in the rate is more like 60/40.
I remember reading a short story that was supposed to be set in NYC, and two people shared a cab. The first person was going to one destination, and then the cab essentially turned around and drove the second person to a destination in a completely different area. It made the entire story seem completely unrealistic to me – that would just be so unusual unless there was some specific and compelling reason to do so. I remember a funny incident where a guy I was trying to impress a girl, and implied that he lived in a very ritzy neighborhood (he did not) and then the girl ended up asking him to share a cab home. He didn’t want to 'fess up, so he ended up stuck paying the fare to the ritzy neighborhood, and then going all the back to his not-so-ritzy neighborhood.
I’m beginning to think I was ripped off…
I live near the DC metro area. Well within the area of service within public transportation (metrorail and bus).
One time after barhopping, I chose to take the metro/bus combo home. (smart move, I’m thinking) I rode the metro to the most convenient stop I could that late at night and still get the last connecting bus to my home. I was wrong. I miscalculated and missed the bus by a good half hour. (Thanks for nothing, Memory!)
Although I could have walked the distance as a younger man (approx. 6 miles), I probably wouldn’t have made it in my intoxicated state. There was another dude at the metro stop who was in the same situation. We spoke, and concluded that our stops were along the same path. His was in the middle, and mine was at the end. So we decided to flag down and share a cab.
We find a cab. We get in. We get to his stop. Dude pays the full fare plus tip and says ‘thanks, man’ and leaves. I ask the cab drive to reset the meter, since he already got paid plus tip.
Cabbie starts to quote chapter and verse about cabs in this area are restricted by law not to restart the meter without logging into their dispatcher with a new pickup and new fare, distance to new fare, blah blah blah. I’m drunk and sleepy. I just want to go home. He continues to my home and I pay the full fare. (minus tip, because I figure he already got paid once and I don’t have deep pockets at the end of a Saturday night.)
Was he just being a jerk or was I really just that dumb? 
Wait, so the cabbie essentially got paid double for the first part of the trip? I’ll admit that I know nothing about cab riding, but it sounds like you got ripped off.
THAT’s what I’m saying… but I don’t have any reliable evidence. I was drunk and sleepy.
Why in heaven’s name would you have paid the part he already paid for? That makes no sense to anyone.
The principle I’m familiar with is, assuming everyone’s in reasonably the same direction, if there are (say) three people splitting, when person 1 is dropped off, she pays 1/3 the current meter (plus tip), or rather she gives it to her friends towards the final meter bill (paid by the last friend using the contributions). After all, the friends benefit as much as she does (since we’ve stipulated they’re going in the same direction). She would be expected to contribute more if the cab went out of its way for her (since they’ll have to pay to get back on track).
Naturally most people willingly overcontribute a bit so as not to screw over their friends.
Wait, did Dude pay you or the cabbie? Because (let’s say it’s a $10 total, and he gets out halfway) if he gives you a five + tip, then you would give ten + tip, half of which had already been provided by Dude. But if Dude paid the cabbie $5+tip, then you should only have paid $5+tip when you got out.
Yeah, I think this makes the most sense, really. And you put it way better than I did.
Yeah, the first time I’d ever heard of per person fare, I was 24 years old, and in a two-bit farm town in the middle of nowhere. When the cabbie told me there was an additional $2 for the second passenger, I thought to myself, “Is this fucker trying to game me?” He was not; that’s just the way it works.
Anyway, I don’t make this complicated. The first person out of the cab pays the driver fare on the meter plus tip, and then the second passenger pays the remaining fare plus tip. It’s not always even, but who cares? Between buying rounds and future cab rides, it should even out eventually. And if it doesn’t, who cares?