Friday, September 19, 2008

The Motorcycle Taxi

My client's in-house counsel does some semi-pro motorcycle racing on the weekends and one of his friends operates a motorcycle taxi service. Having led a relatively sheltered life and never having ridden on one, he ordered one for me today to pick me up at the airport after a day-trip.

The driver had been told that I had never been on a motorcycle and greeted me by saying "Welcome to life." I found this both funny and a little disconcerting. With Buena Vista Social Club playing on the in-helmet speakers, I climbed aboard and off we went. We went about 80 mph on the rural freeway, but where the service really demonstrated its use was in going between cars that were stuck in a rush hour traffic jam once we got closer to the city. I could see a real appeal for this on the Kennedy Expressway, which during rush hour is at least 1 hour (often longer) from downtown to O'Hare, but I will leave this idea for a new business venture to some other entrepreneur.

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