I just finished a fascinating book called Streetwise: How Taxi Drivers Establish Their Customers’ Trustworthiness by Diego Gambetta and Heather Hamill. The authors studied taxi drivers in New York and Belfast. American taxi drivers are victims of the highest homicide rate of any profession in the country, thus this seemed like a group of people who would have thought carefully about how they identify who is and is not trustworthy. Here is an excerpt I found interesting:
If held up, a driver who genuinely does not have any money knows that this will be interpreted as a refusal and aggravate an attacker further. So while drivers tend to drive with as little money as possible, they avoid driving with none at all.
I often ask taxi drivers how long they have been working, just to make small talk. Apparently this is a bad question. Thieves ask this question to determine whether drivers are carrying a lot of money.
Really interesting – and what a creative methodology. I’m asking the publishers to make this available via Kindle. I’m guessing you’ve read Gambetta’s other work on the Sicilian mafia?
I can send you my copy! What’s your address? No I haven’t–I should check that out!