Tales Of A New York Limo Driver

By Nicky Testaforte

This Revised Fourth Edition Now Contains:

100 Stories of Sex, Excess and Stupidity
40+ Sarcastic Travel and Driving Tips
Plus, over 20 photos of bastardized signs and awnings from in and around NYC

Thousands of Paperback and E-Book Versions Sold!

With the acerbic wit of a jaded New Yorker who's driven over two million miles in and around NYC, Nicky Testaforte opens the door of his limo to tell the amazing and funny stories of the ridiculous things he's seen and heard in addition to relating stories from his clients and other drivers.

Speaking of other drivers, here are reviews from two professional chauffeurs who aren't knuckledraggers or bottom feeders.

Tony Sorendo rated it Five Stars on Goodreads:
"Being a former limo driver myself. I could definitely relate to the stories depicted in this book. Well written and very humorous indeed!! Loved it."

Nicole L. Paris 5.0 out of 5 stars EXCELLENT READING!!!!
"Being a driver myself, I can honestly relate to the stories and suggestions made in this book! Being a limo driver is one of the most exciting and thrilling jobs a person can do, minus the horrific treatment provided by thoughtful clients making insensitive remarks to us. This book describes it all and is well-written. I enjoyed it from start to finish, any limo driver should read this, as well as the clients needing a refresher on the subject of "The world that doesn't revolve around them"!

Get your copy today and join the thousands of readers who've laughed at someone else's expense!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Testaforte Books
• Release date: Jan 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9798224454884

Book preview

Tales Of A New York Limo Driver

Sex, Excess and Stupidity On Four Wheels

Nicky Testaforte

All Content ©2024 Nicky Testaforte

All Rights Reserved

Published by Testaforte Books

First E-book Edition December 2009

Second E-book Edition September 2013

Third E-book Edition November 2019

Fourth E-book Edition October 2023

Testaforte, Nicky

Tales of a New York Limo Driver Sex, Excess, and Stupidity on Four Wheels

Summary:

Stories of the ridiculous things a New York limo driver has seen, heard, and been told by his clients while driving around New York. Also includes six photos of unbelievable signs and awnings in New York City as well as a chapter of forty-one travel and driving tips.

Legalities, Disclaimers & Warnings

This is a work of non-fiction entertainment. Dancers were involved, but they sure as hell weren’t dancing when I had them.

Names, dates, times, locations, heights, weights, measures, dimensions, and any other qualifiable or quantifiable bits of data have been changed, obfuscated, torn, folded, spindled, and mutilated in order to protect those that need protection

Any resemblance to anything that might exist in your world is purely a figment of your overactive, conspiracy-based imagination. No animals were harmed or run over during the process of writing this book. Maybe just a few decaying trees were sacrificed as well as old copies of The New York Post. (Why couldn’t they have used the trees that drop sap all over my car?)

No parts of what exists between, and including, the covers of this book may be reproduced in any way, shape, or form without the expressed written consent of the Author and Publisher. Exceptions are gladly granted for the inclusion of brief quotations in four star or greater, positive glowing reviews.

If the subject matter of this book offends you, or if you lack a sense of humor, place the book down and back away slowly, I wouldn’t want you to get hurt. For the rest of you, turn the page and have a laugh at other people’s expense.

Acknowlegements

Thanks to all the advance readers who provided generous feedback and inertia to this project. Special thanks to the 500+ people who graciously signed up for the opt-in mailing list and have offered to act as viral marketers on my behalf.

And most especially to the revolving cast of characters who’ve supplied their stories or have unknowingly been the subject of a story, I can’t thank you people enough.

Really.

To all of the people who heard some of these stories in the car and said:

Wow, those are great stories. You should write a book!

Guess what…

Chapter one

Introduction

Unless you’re standing outside the Grammys, Emmys Golden Globes, Oscars, or any other star-studded, laudatory event, not every limo you see is filled with celebrities.

Let me pop your bubble there, sunshine. Limos ferry everything from people heading to and from the airport, suits driven back and forth to work on a daily basis, rich drunks too wasted to take the train home, trophy wives out shopping or getting their hair and nails done as well as the coddled children of privilege squired around at well over $75 an hour.

In the ensuing pages, you’ll hear about the idiotic, risqué, and excessive things clients and drivers have done in and around limos. Plus, as my gift to you, I’ll also impart some helpful hints and wiseass wisdom to improve your next limo experience.

Enjoy the Ride

Chapter two

A Few Notes About The Area I Service

There are three major airports JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark, and three smaller airports Islip/MacArthur, Teterboro, and Westchester which handle over 1,370,000 passengers per month, 342,000 per week, 48,857 a day, 2,035 an hour.

Numerous wealthy communities dot the tri-state area such as Scarsdale, NY, Great Neck, LI, Greenwich, CT, Rumson, NJ and of course, the tony sections of Manhattan just to name a few.

Amenities in the private homes I’ve visited include multi-floor elevators, a four-hole golf course, car lifts (to double the capacity of their garage), an ice rink with its own friggin’ Zamboni, a full-size antique amusement park carousel, a 3,600 sq. Ft. gym and one home that had a disappearing floor in a sub-basement revealing an Olympic-sized swimming pool. I passed one house that was demolished and excavated in order for the owner to have an indoor squash court and batting cage built before his new house went up.

Not bad huh? And you’re still trying to scrape enough money together to replace the gutters.

Go figure.

Because New York is considered the financial capital of the world in addition to having a strong entertainment and media presence, each of the attributes I listed adds up to a plethora of service opportunities and unbelievable incidents worth noting.

My average workday consists of a lot of mind-numbing trips, occasionally interrupted by forays into the ridiculous, co-starring a wide array of characters and situations that are so outrageous, I just couldn’t resist flipping the bird at the idea that What happens in a limo, stays in a limo.

Fuck that.

The stories are just too good not to tell.

Chapter three

Behind the Scenes of a Limo Company

The average limo company was started up by one guy with a few clients and a dream of striking it rich. Some do the right thing, get lucky along the way, and end up with a good solid business. One comes to mind that has been servicing three generations of clients for over forty years. Then there are the national companies who claim to provide service in most major cities. The caveat there is that they subcontract work where they don’t have a satellite office.

With these sub-contractors, you think you are being picked up by the company you use at home, but instead, it’s some small local operator looking to supplement his measly business. Service tends to be spotty because the national company fails to enforce its standards of operation, letting the little guy shit all over their reputation. Other companies don’t want the agita of a larger operation full of hare-brained idiots, so they stay small and hope to retain a handful of loyal clients.

Then there are the bottom feeders: unreliable, don’t know where they are going, don’t stick around if you are late, and operate vehicles up to seven years old that don’t instill comfort or confidence in their passengers. One bottomfeeder company, which advertises heavily in the airports as the cheapest provider, runs a fleet of vehicles where the only requirement is that vehicles must have four inflated tires and just as many stickers on the rear windshield advertising the company. One day you can be picked up in an Escalade and the next in a Nissan minivan. No consistency.

One of my client’s companies bought a controlling interest in this company. I raised the branding issue with him, and he said, that was the least of their problems. They were busy trying to find a way to eradicate the smell of curry from the vehicles, both from the drivers eating it as well as their bodies exuding it. Mmmm.

Then there are the clue-free idiots who drive for Uber & Lyft. I could write chapters about these fools, but it would be a waste of effort.

One more thing about bottomfeeders: Cost-conscious companies who view ground transportation as a commodity rather than a value-based service, have furthered their growth. This is an industry where you truly get what you pay for.

There are three basic operating units of a limo company. Reservations, Dispatch, and Drivers.

But before we delve into that, my students, I present a brief lesson in Limo Lingo.

Curbside Pickup - What a client requests when he wants to be picked up at the curb of the departures area in the terminal. This is the most efficient and cost-effective method for airport pickups unless you have four fucking tons of luggage, a dumb-as-a-stump spouse, and three screaming jet-lagged kids waiting to get strapped into their car seats.

Wait and Return - Having a car and driver pick you up, wait for you at your destination, and then cart your ass back to your original location. This is charged on an hourly basis, anywhere from $75 per hour and up depending on the vehicle requested. Drivers clean up on these types of jobs.

As Directed - The client directs the driver to the intended location(s). Some clue-free drivers refuse these trips because they tend to get lost leaving their driveway.

Circling - Driving around the block and depleting the ozone layer because you can’t get a parking space in front of the pickup location, or what you're forced to do if a quota-short traffic cop is on a mission to bust your balls, write you up, and clear the streets.

10 Codes – Radio codes similar to what police and diehard CB‘ers use. (10-4 good buddy.) Makes for better radio communication. Sadly, so few companies utilize it. When I asked one dispatcher about it, he said

Uh, what are those...Oh, we don’t use ‘em 'cause our guys can’t spell.

Greeter - They tend to be attractive females who escort clients from the terminal to a waiting car sitting curbside. nine out of ten male clients will ask them if they are their driver. You should see the look of disappointment on their faces when they realize that they lost a chance to score with the fine-looking escort and end up with Limo Quarterly’s cover models - Punjab, Hamib, or Kwanzee as their designated driver.

Reservations

Besides Drivers, Reservationists are the other client-facing parts of a limo company that set the tone of the operation. I’ve seen some real winners doing this job. I’ve lost count of how many times these spelling-challenged, geographically averse folks have driven me crazy trying to find a location, based on their phonetics, ebonics, or whatever–ics they conjure up.

When calling in a reservation, it’s important that you provide you must provide as much info as possible, even if the reservationist doesn’t elicit it from you. Don’t wait for them to be proactive, because they may not know to ask you the right questions.

Also, keep in mind that most of these people are chained to a desk, staring bug-eyed at a monitor in a noisy windowless room. So, whether it’s sunny and warm or there’s a tornado tearing up the interstate, chances are they’ll give you the standard pickup time based on your location. Tell them what time you want to be picked up.

Any defining characteristics or landmarks that you offer up, such as a greenhouse with peeling black shutters, diagonally across from Swami’s 24-Hour Quick-E Mart, right next to the crack house, or something as simple as the third double-wide on the left, make finding the location a breeze.

Also, be specific about the vehicle you’d like, whether it’s a sedan, stretch, SUV, party van, or cattle trailer. If not, a sedan will show up, when you needed an armada of 18-wheelers to handle all of the crap you’re carting along on your four-month safari.

Other things to consider include:

How many passengers?

Don’t be cheap and make me stuff five people plus luggage into a sedan

How many pieces of luggage?

Did you ever see any limos with roof racks?

Any oversize items?

Skis, javelins or 4’ x 8’ sheets of plywood

Additional stops?

Your girlfriend’s house before you go home to the wife and kids?

A specific location you’d like to be picked up?

Southwest corner of 42nd and 6th, Under the last stool at O’Malley’s pub or the AA meeting at the Knights of Columbus Hall.

After the reservation has been entered, the reservationist should read it back to you. If not, request it as they may have misheard or gotten dyslexic with your address. Disregard if you live at 55 Otto St. or 88 Bob Ct., etc.

If it’s an advance reservation, they put it into the system and assign it to a driver the night before. If it’s an ASAP pickup, you’ll be put on hold for dispatch to locate and wake up the closest driver to your location, then they’ll ballpark how long it should be before your chariot eventually shows up.

Dispatch

Dispatchers have the thankless job of coordinating a fleet of cars and timing them so that all of the runs are covered. They can also make or break a company. If they do a poor job, the clients get pissed. If they jerk the drivers around, most will refuse to put up with that shit and go somewhere else, just to deal with the same crap from a different bunch of idiots. They’re not all that bad though. I’ve worked with some really great dispatchers who could juggle chainsaws and piranhas in a category five hurricane, whistle Dixie while chewing gum, and still stay calm.

There’s one dispatcher who whenever he answers the phone, says the company name and his name so fast, it sounds like some insurgent group in Iraq. Then there are the primadonnas who act as if they know it all, give you attitude, and treat you like an idiot. The worst kind of dispatcher is the excitable primadonna. He’s the asshole who’s screaming into the radio and all you hear is noise. I love it when they pull that crap while the client is in the car. It makes the company seem so professional. And these guys never own up to mistakes they’ve made.

Here’s an example:

A dispatcher, whom I tolerated until he pulled his condescending attitude, told me to pick up two gentlemen at an address in an industrial area of the Bronx. I get to the area and I can’t find the address he gave me.

I’m driving up and down the street like an idiot, I stop and ask a security guard in front of a building in the neighborhood, and still no luck finding this address. I called the dispatcher back and told him I couldn’t find it. He gets pissed at me and says

It’s there. It’s a brick apartment building. Go find it.

I tell him, It’s an industrial area, no apartment buildings around here.

He then says I know it’s there. I made a pickup there once myself.

Then he hangs up on me.

Scumbag.

While I’m checking the map for the fifth time, one of the clients knocks on the window and says,

What are you doing over here; we’ve been waiting for you around the corner.

They get in and the other guy says:

Why the hell didn’t they call us instead of you driving all over the place?

Cause they’re fucking stupid primadonnas, that’s why.

I told the client to call the company and lodge a complaint and at the same time put in a good word for my effort in trying to find them.