History Main / DerangedTaxiDriver

* In ''Film/{{Scrooged}}'', the Ghost Of Christmas Past takes the form of a sinister, cackling cabbie who drives like he's in a demolition derby.
* Probably the most famous (and infamous) example in cinema: Travis Bickle, the AntiHero of ''Film/TaxiDriver''. A disturbed, moralistic Vietnam vet, Travis makes a living out of driving a cab for passengers almost as crazy as he is. Driven to the edge by the urban decay all around him, he buys an arsenal of guns and begins an obsessive journey to save a teen prostitute from the men exploiting her.

* Music/DavidBowie: In the music video for "I'm Afraid of Americans", Bowie gets on a cab to escape from a chasing [[Music/NineInchNails Trent Reznor]]. On the cab, Bowie realizes Reznor himself is the driver, including an official NY taxi driver ID that mysteriously replaces the original one from the previous driver. Bowie tries to escape only to find Reznor on the sidewalk who then starts to shoot at the cab [[MoreDakka riddling it with bulletholes]]. A scared Bowie then looks up and realizes that [[AllJustADream Reznor is gone, and the vehicle looks completely fine]].

* ''VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry1InTheLandOfTheLoungeLizards'': The taxi driver in Los Wages. If Larry does not have the fare needed to pay for the ride, he'll beat the crap out of him and drive over him out of anger. Additionally, if Larry enters a taxi with a box of wine in the inventory, he'll steal it, guzzle it down, and end Larry's life with his drunk driving.
* ''VideoGame/Road96'': Jarod is a serial killer who uses his cab's trunk to transport his victims, often alive and screaming for help. He has never learned to cope with his daughter's death and is prone to violent mood swings from bland apathy to screaming rage. It is entirely possible for the Hitcher to get murdered by him in several of his sequences, in one case burning them to death on ''suspicion'' they're a Black Brigades member.

* ''WebVideo/DannyGonzalez'': One skit sees Danny in the back-seat of a taxi when he spills coffee on himself. The driver calmly hands him a gun to clean up the spill with, and then says that "the guy in the back isn't too bloody" if he needs a change of clothes.

* The page quote is provided by Johnny Cab from ''Film/TotalRecall'', an [[AutomatedAutomobiles android cab driver]] who gets hijacked by the hero, Doug Quaid. Johnny actually functions pretty well up until Quaid declines to pay his 18-credit fare ("Sue me, dickhead."), at which point Johnny snaps and tries to run him over, crashing the cab into a concrete wall and exploding.

* The ''VideoGame/TwistedMetal'' series: Charlie Kane appears in several games, driving the weaponized taxi Yellow Jacket. While he starts as a lonely and odd but fairly normal man, by his last appearance he's become a biomechanical zombie, remote-controlled by his insane son.

->''"Hope you enjoyed the ride! Ha ha!"''

[[caption-width-right:350:...better leave him a good tip.]]

-->-- '''Johnny Cab''' (right before the explosion), ''Film/{{Total Recall|1990}}''

Maybe he's a {{Cloudcuckoolander}}, maybe a SerialKiller... Either way, once you're in his cab you're in serious trouble.

[[folder:ComicBooks]]
* Downplayed in ''ComicBook/FromHell'' with Netley the coachman (a Victoria-era version of a cab driver). He comes off as an average working Joe, and even shows some resistance to the story's more sinister themes. It doesn't make him any more sane for his current fare: transporting Dr. William Gull, AKA Jack the Ripper, as he commits his infamous murders.
* The Zen Cabbie of ''ComicBook/Top10''. He wears a blindfold and DrivesLikeCrazy, justifying it as "I don't drive the cab, the universe does" (even in a city where EveryoneIsASuper, he still comes off as a loon). Considering the fact that he picks up his passengers wherever they need transportation the most and they arrive to wherever they need to go JustInTime to accomplish whatever they need to do, [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane he may have a point]].

[[folder:Film - Live-Action]]

* ''Film/ConspiracyTheory'': Jerry Fletcher is a paranoid New York cab driver who rants and raves about conspiracies to any passenger who will listen (and anyone who won't). His home is basically a survivalist's bunker, even armed with a self-destruct system. Turns out he has a good reason for his erratic behavior; he may have been an MK Ultra subject, brainwashed into being a sleeper assassin, and is fighting his programming.
* ''Film/{{Deadpool}}'': Dopinder the Taxi Driver befriends Deadpool after the latter gave him some questionable romantic advice. In attempting to follow said advice, he ends up kidnapping his romantic rival and stuffing him in the backseat of the cab. In ''Film/Deadpool2'', he starts trying to become a mercenary like Deadpool attempts to join the X-Force.
* ''Film/EscapeFromNewYork'': the Cabbie is a friendly, enthusiastic {{Cloudcuckoolander}} who seems to have no problem being trapped in a city full of violent criminals, driving an armored taxi and using Molotov cocktails to drive off crazies who threaten his customers; when he meets Snake Plissken (an infamous gunfighter and thief) he reacts like a little kid meeting his football hero. [[spoiler:At the end, when the President shows little regard for Cabbie and others who died getting him out of New York, an enraged Plissken humiliates him by tricking the President into playing Cabbie's copy of "Bandstand Boogie" at a summit instead of a tape about nuclear fusion, while Snake destroys the real tape.]]

* ''Film/ForAGoodTimeCall'': Creator/KevinSmith has a cameo as a caller to the main characters' phone sex line, a cab driver pleasuring himself ''while on duty.'' [[CrossesTheLineTwice Then we see he even has a passenger in the back seat waiting for him to finish.]]
* ''Film/TheGame1997'': Nicholas Van Orton is trapped in a cab with a grinning man who DrivesLikeCrazy, before leaping from the cab as it drives into the river, taking Nicholas with it (he manages to escape). [[spoiler:Subverted at the end when we see the driver among the many actors employed by CRS for the Game Nicholas is trapped in; the entire incident was staged]].

--> '''J:''' Cab drivers?
--> '''K:''' Not as many as you'd think.
* Downplayed in ''Film/PulpFiction'' with Esmerelda Villalobos. She's perfectly lucid and transports Butch with no trouble... but she's also ''very'' interested in discussing how it felt when he beat a man to death in a boxing match.

* The page quote is provided by Johnny Cab from ''Film/TotalRecall'', an android cab driver who gets hijacked by the hero, Doug Quaid. Johnny actually functions pretty well up until Quaid declines to pay his 18-credit fare ("Sue me, dickhead."), at which Johnny snaps and tries to run him over, crashing the cab into a concrete wall and exploding.
* ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'': Benny is a Deranged ''Taxi,'' a toon cab with no concern for the laws of traffic or physics. He gets the heroes out of several scrapes, usually while shouting about which sports team he hates.

* ''Series/CSINewYork'': A four-episode arc revolves around the Cabbie Killer who locks people in his cab, poisons them with carbon monoxide and carves "L2729" onto the backs of their necks. When he is finally captured, he is revealed to be a religious fanatic who sees his victims as sinners to be delivered to the underworld, with L2729 being a reference to Leviticus 27:29[[note]]"No person devoted to destruction may be ransomed; he must be put to death"[[/note]].

* On the 1998 Dutch ForeignRemake of British {{Edutainment}} show ''Series/PoliceCameraAction'', there was footage from 1996 of a deranged Dutch taxi driver doing 204 km/h (125mph) on a motorway near Hengelo, the Netherlands. Apparently, he was in a rush to get his fare to the airport on time, but that still didn't explain why he needed to do ''125mph''. Borders on RefugeInAudacity as well.
* ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'': In the first episode "[[Recap/SherlockS01E01AStudyInPink A Study in Pink]]", Holmes' investigation into a SerialKiller leads him to a terminally ill cabbie who forces his victims into a sick game of RussianRoulette involving poison pills. Sherlock almost plays the game with him just to see if he's smart enough to deduce the right pill, but Watson sharpshoots the cabbie before he can.
* ''Series/{{Taxi}}'': a sitcom about the struggles and friendships of a cab company whose drivers were flawed but normal people... and also the Reverend Jim Ignatowski, whom the 60's left with about two working brain cells (which rarely worked at the same time).
* {{Downplayed}} in the French-Canadian series ''Taxi 0-22''. The [[WorkingClassHero Working Class]] PoliticallyIncorrectHero driver Rogatien Dubois Junior is an obnoxious {{Jerkass}} but he's pretty much harmless, has his [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold nice moments]] and goes through CharacterDevelopment throughout the series.
* ''Series/NinjaSentaiKakuranger'': Oboruguruma, while normally just a peaceful yokai turned taxi driver, had a short temper and attacked violently anyone who made him angry. Eventually, he snapped and decided to destroy the entire city in rage ("Humanity's going to pay for how it's treated me all these years!") until he was destroyed by the heroes. His ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' counterpart, Crabby Cabbie, was an insane psychotic taxi turned MonsterOfTheWeek who was channeling Travis Bickle from ''Film/TaxiDriver'', complete with New York accent.

* Music/RedHotChiliPeppers: In the music video for "By The Way," Anthony Kiedis is kidnapped by a bizarre cab driver who seems to be an obsessed fan, playing the song on the cab's radio as he drives like a maniac through Los Angeles, culminating with the driver doing a creepy dance in a tunnel while Kiedis is ForcedToWatch. Kiedis gets a message to Flea and John Fruscianti, and they chase the driver until Kiedis can break the cab's window and leap into their truck. Shortly afterward, we see the driver [[HereWeGoAgain pick up a new unsuspecting passenger]].
* Music/DavidBowie: In the music video for "I'm Afraid of Americans", Bowie gets on a cab to escape from a chasing [[Music/NineInchNails Trent Reznor]]. On the cab, Bowie realizes Reznor himself is the driver, including an official NY taxi driver ID that mysteriously replaces the original one from the previous driver. Bowie tries to escape only to find Reznor on the sidewalk who then starts to shoot at the cab [[MoreDakka riddling it with bulletholes]]. A scared Bowie then looks up and realizes that [[AllJustADream Reznor is gone and the vehicle looks completely fine]].

[[/folder]]

* Music/DavidBowie: In the music video for "I'm Afraid of Americans", Bowie gets on a cab to escape from a chasing [[Music/NineInchNails Trent Reznor]]. On the cab, Bowie realizes Reznor himself is the driver. Bowie tries to escape only to find Reznor on the sidewalk who then starts to shoot at the cab [[MoreDakka riddling it with bulletholes]]. A scared Bowie then looks up and realizes that [[AllJustADream Reznor is gone and the vehicle looks completely fine]].

-->-- '''Johnny Cab''' (right before the explosion), ''Film/TotalRecall''

* ''Film/TheGame'': Nicholas Van Orton is trapped in a cab with a grinning man who DrivesLikeCrazy, before leaping from the cab as it drives into the river, taking Nicholas with it (he manages to escape). [[spoiler:Subverted at the end when we see the driver among the many actors employed by CRS for the Game Nicholas is trapped in; the entire incident was staged]].

* ''Series/CSINewYork'': A four-episode arc revolved around the Cabbie Killer. His modus operandi involved locking people in his cab, poisoning them with carbon monoxide and leaving "L2729" carved onto the backs of their necks. When he was finally captured, he was revealed to be a religious fanatic who saw his victims as sinners he needed to deliver to the underworld, with L2729 being a reference to Leviticus 27:29[[note]]"No person devoted to destruction may be ransomed; he must be put to death"[[/note]].

* Probably the most famous example in cinema: Travis Bickle, the AntiHero of ''Film/TaxiDriver''. A disturbed, moralistic Vietnam vet, Travis makes a living out of driving a cab for passengers almost as crazy as he is. Driven to the edge by the urban decay all around him, he buys an arsenal of guns and begins an obsessive journey to save a teen prostitute from the men exploiting her.

* ''Series/NinjaSentaiKakuranger'': Oboruguruma, while normally just a peaceful yokai turned taxi driver, had a short temper and attacked violently anyone who made him angry. Eventually, he snapped and decided to destroy the entire city in rage ("Humanity's going to pay for how it's treated me all these years!") until he was destroyed by the heroes. His ''Franchise/PowerRanger'' counterpart, Crabby Cabbie, was an insane psychotic taxi turned MonsterOfTheWeek who was channeling Travis Bickle from ''Film/TaxiDrive'', complete with New York accent.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/travis_bickle.png]]

* ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'': In the first episode "A Study In Pink," Holmes's investigation into a SerialKiller leads him to a terminally ill cabbie who forces his victims into a sick game of RussianRoulette involving poison pills. Sherlock almost plays the game with him just to see if he's smart enough to deduce the right pill, but Watson sharpshoots the cabbie before he can.

* Music/RedHotChiliPeppers: In the music video for "By The Way," Anthony Kiedis is kidnapped by a bizarre cab driver who seems to be an obsessed fan, playing the song on the cab's radio as he drives like a maniac through Los Angeles, culminating with the driver doing a creepy dance in a tunnel while Kiedis is ForcedToWatch. Kiedis gets a message to Flea and Michael Frusciatti, and they chase the driver until Kiedis can break the cab's window and leap into their truck. Shortly afterward, we see the driver [[HereWeGoAgain pick up a new unsuspecting passenger]].

Stand-Up Comedy

The Deranged Taxi Driver is a SubTrope of TheDriver, but instead of a stock character they are defined by their deep-down craziness. This can take many different forms: maybe a ConspiracyTheorist who babbles to their customers while stuck in traffic, or even TheSociopath who uses the job as an excuse to collect victims. Odds are he DrivesLikeCrazy, but often is strangely efficient at getting someone from Point A to Point B. It's getting them there in ''one piece'' that's the hard part. In the US, taxi driving is a common occupation for new immigrants so the driver may be a FunnyForeigner. In Britain he's more likely to be a LowerClassLout.