On Taxis.

Last Saturday night a taxi driver followed me home.

My friends and I were coming home from Kings Day festivities. We were a bit drunk and tired and we just wanted to crawl into our respective beds and go to sleep. It was around 3am.

The taxi driver was quiet throughout the whole trip. I sat in the back seat in between my friend and her boyfriend. We made idle chit chat while the driver remained totally silent. Once in a while I caught him looking at me in the rearview mirror.

I live around the corner from my friend, so as we pulled up to her house she said, 'do you want to get out here and walk? It'll be quicker than if he goes around the block'. I agreed. We paid and I began walking the 2 minute trip to my house. I noticed that instead of pulling away, the taxi driver was idling at the spot where he dropped us off. I figured he was locating his next destination. As I rounded around the corner I noticed that he reversed the car towards me. I quickened my pace. Then he disappeared.

A few moments later I heard the engine as he pulled up next to me. He called me over. My instincts told me not to approach him but I didn't know whether ignoring him would aggravate him. I walked up to the passenger window and he proceeded to ask me questions.

"Where do you live? Can I take you there?"

"What street do you live on?"

"What is your name?"

"Do you live alone?"

"Are you lonely?"

"Do you want me to give you some company?"

I lied in all my responses. When I rejected his offer for company I said 'no' again, turned around and started running home. He drove slowly next to me, watching me, not saying a word. In one hand I held my keys between my fingers and in the other my phone, unlocked, ready to call the police. He drove on a few seconds later and I ran to my house, dropping my keys at the front door in a panic. When I finally made it upstairs, I looked out of the window onto the street and I saw the taxi idling by the curb again. I called my friend who was in the taxi with me and told her about it. He drove away about a minute later.

My friend offered to walk with her boyfriend to come get me and take me to their house, but I was too freaked out to leave the house. I didn't leave the house again all Sunday. Today I rode my bike to uni, painfully aware of all the taxi drivers around me.

This story is by no means unique.

I've had taxi drivers both in London and Sydney take advantage of the situation to try to get me to sit in the front seat and let them have a grope. After one bad turn with a taxi driver in London I started taking photos of their registration details (usually displayed prominently in the front window) and sending it to a friend that I was out with. I would explain what I was doing to the taxi driver and for the most part they were fine with it. Only twice have I been refused a ride because the driver was offended that I didn't 'trust' him.

In this situation though my guard was down because I was travelling with friends, one of them a man, and I didn't think there was any risk in a one minute walk to my house.

But my experience with the taxi driver is only part of the story. A few days later I found myself discussing it with friends, both male and female. Not surprisingly the girls reacted with sympathy and shock and many had similar stories of their own. One friend in Sydney even has a tactic of calling a person whenever she's in a taxi (whatever the time) so the driver can't say or do anything to her. But when I spoke of this to my male friends, they mainly shrugged it off. One friend changed the topic pretty hastily. Another friend made jokes about how I should be flattered that the taxi driver obviously fancied me even after I was covered in filth from a Kings Day bender. Another guy asked how drunk I was. The more I spoke about it to them, the more they shut it down.

This has really upset me. I don't want my friends to joke about a situation where I was vulnerable, harassed and then asked for sex. I want them to take my story, and similar stories from their other friends and try to understand just how dangerous navigating the world can be for a woman. It's a really sad state of affairs that in 2014 I have convince my male friends that a taxi driver harassing me was completely unwanted. It's even worse that they think I should be flattered by the attention.

So I guess I'll end my rant with this: In a world where more than 50% of the population can physically overpower and attack you, you can never be too careful. I'm off to sign up for Krav Maga.