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Truth and the Taxi Driver

Featured Pathway: The Story of Transformation: Crafting the stories we tell about ourselves, our relationships, and our world. Leader Chuck Allen. CTI leader, Chuck Allen, shares an experience that illustrates how the human brain is wired for shortcuts, called heuristics, that can give us skewed interpretations of our everyday experiences.

 It was the first time I’ve ever refused to tip a taxi driver, and it was a really easy decision.

Here’s what happened. I was catching a taxi home from Los Angeles International airport after leading a CTI Fulfillment course in Washington, DC. I said what I always say: “It’s off Sepulveda, North of Venice. So just take Sepulveda the whole way and I’ll tell you when to turn.”

Before I knew it, the driver had veered onto Lincoln Blvd.

“Wait! What are you doing? I never said turn on Lincoln.”

“You said Venice Beach. This is the way to Venice Beach,” he answered.

“No. I said take Sepulveda North past Venice Blvd.”

“It’s the same thing. Venice Beach.”

“No. It’s not the same thing. I never said Venice Beach. I live several miles East of Venice Beach. You are going the wrong way!”

The driver sighed and began finding his way back to my intended route. The entire time I watched the numbers tick higher on the meter. Sensing my anxiety he said, “You can take some money off the fare.” And then he said the thing he should not have said, the thing that cost him his tip: “But it’s your fault.”

“My fault?!”

“Why you say Venice Beach if you don’t live there? Your fault,” he shrugged like the matter was settled.

When we got to my house he tried to talk me out of reducing the fare. I paid him (sans tip) and dragged my luggage inside. For a few minutes I sat on the couch steaming, debating whether to call the cab company with a complaint.

And then I remembered that this same exact thing almost happened the previous month. On that occasion I was able to stop the driver before he completed the turn onto Lincoln. In both instances what I thought I said did not match what the driver thought he heard.

How does this happen?

Our brains are wired to operate as efficiently as possible, often taking shortcuts as they process incoming information. These shortcuts, or “rules of thumb,” are called heuristics. Shortcuts of the mind happen constantly, and they usually happen below the level of our awareness. They can cause us to see and hear things differently than they actually occurred. They also cause us to make mistakes because we are not paying full attention to details. We are especially vulnerable to heuristic errors when we are operating in familiar circumstances and environments.

A taxi driver who works the LAX Airport shift makes a lot of trips to Venice Beach. It’s easy to imagine that the moment he hears the word “Venice” he gets a complete picture in his mind: the route, the intersections, the time, distance and fare… and… the Beach. He simply tunes out the rest of the directions because he knows how to get there.

Knowing that this same confusion surfaced during a taxi ride the previous month, I should have known that the name “Venice” equals “Beach” in taxi driver heuristics. That’s what he heard because his brain was taking a shortcut, and he doesn’t even know it. (Either that, or I actually said what he heard me say, which I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t do even by accident.) But from now on, I will give directions without referencing “Venice.”

This incident sure has me thinking. I bet this kind of confusion and disagreement happens all the time. Normally, each person concludes that the other is a jerk and they both go off believing their own stories. But I think we can do better. Perhaps we can stand to be a little more suspicious of our own version of events. And we can be a lot more sympathetic to the heuristic errors of others, because we make them all the time ourselves.

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