Prius Cabs helps the planet; not traffic flow.

So I’m taking a cab the other day and it’s a Toyota Prius. Cool, we’re going to create fewer emissions as we head across Manhattan. The ride goes pretty well, the cab seems we’ll be equipped but the interior taxi modifications need to be a little more refined. Hey, maybe in the next round.

We’ve read about the benefits that hybrids can have in a fleet of cars, especially for a taxi company with cars active 24 hours a day, read the full article Hybrid Taxi paid for itself in no time.

Anyway, the reason for my writing (*cough, rant) is because of the cabbies’ education, training, or lack of how a Hybrid works. It’s New York City, we’re going to be in some bumper-to-bumper or stop and go; perfect for the hybrid.

Fast forward about 10 minutes into the ride, we seemed to have stopped in traffic. Not paying much attention until we are being honked at, I quickly see the driver restarting the car and fiddling with the transmission. No way.

Are you serious?? Your car was completely quiet so you thought it stalled? And now you’ve successfully turned off the car and can’t turn it back on because you’re transmission is still in Drive.

So here is my crash course in hybrid driving. Just drive, hardly thinking about it. Kind of like you do when you’re on the phone for hours… seriously who do you talk to? And what about? Don’t even think of it being a different car, you’ll get to fill up the tankless often and the maintenance schedule might be a bit different.

I’m laughing as I write this rant and truly hope to see more Prius and other hybrid vehicles in the taxi fleets around the world. It does make a difference in our carbon footprint, and each of those carbon emissions would be better spent at the track.

Next time, I’ll be a bit more forgiving and go easy on the driver.

Here’s a demo from “How Stuff Works” … pretty cool.