Having been born in NYC, worked there all of my life, and lived there until I was in my 40's, I can say that I always try to avoid taking yellow cabs.
When I was a kid, some of my friends fathers were medallion cab drivers, and many others moonlighted as yellow cab drivers. Good men.
That was a long time ago, and the NYC cab drivers of the 60's are not the NYC cab drivers of today.
These days you are more likely than not to get in a yellow cab with a driver who drives like he is in a demolition derby, has a very poor grasp of the English language, and will try to rip you off by taking the scenic route.
I've got a distinctive NYC accent, and an intimate knowledge of my way around NYC including 3 of the 4 outer boroughs (try to avoid Staten Island). There are times that I have to take a yellow cab for one reason or another. Less so now, than before UBER. I would say that 80% of the time that I have gotten in a yellow cab over the last 20 or so years, the driver has either tried to rip me off, or driven like a kamikaze.
