Dear Sir,

I write this to inform you of an incident that happened on Saturday, July 4.

My wife and I were going out to celebrate my birthday and called a taxi to pick us up and take us to town. We ordered the cab in advance to pick us up at 7.15pm and I walked out of my apartment at 7.15.

The taxi was already outside and when I approached the cab he abruptly greeted me with “didn’t you hear me tooting the horn?” I said I had not and would need a minute before we were ready to leave. When I returned to the car with my wife and began our drive, the driver was talking out loud in the car. I asked my wife if she knew the driver because he was talking about people touching his car and not greeting him properly.

My wife asked him if he could close the windows and put on the AC because she had her hair down and didn’t want it to be ruined. The driver started to explain that it was a nice breeze and it would be fine with the windows open. My wife requested the AC a second time and he begrudgingly obliged.

I was sending a message on my phone to let our other guests know that we were on our way. I noticed that the driver was driving very fast and driving very aggressively. He started to tell us about another fare that he was waiting for that was a nurse from Dominican and that she always calls and he was trying to make sure he was available. He received the call and proceeded to talk while driving at high speeds.

When I finished my phone message and was focused on the driver, I noted that he was looking down at his phone while driving. I asked him to slow down and stop texting. He replied that he wasn’t texting. I told him whatever he was doing with his phone had to stop and he needed to drive safely with my wife in the car. He told me that I could ask nicely, which forced me to tell him to drive properly immediately.

The rest of the drive he was cautious and did not touch his phone, but he did take time to look up my name on the GPS and continue to look at me in the rear-view mirror.

It is frustrating when you take a cab so that you can have a couple of glasses of wine with dinner and ended up stressed out before you arrive at dinner.

My wife was also involved in the incident described on the night of August 1, Saturday. David Yuhasz’s wife was visiting my wife.

It is pretty disturbing what you can experience getting in a taxi these days in Bermuda.

I will not repeat David’s words to tell you how worried I am now if my wife needs to use taxi services in Bermuda.

BEN SMITH