But my sister is right in nudging me to be a little less trusting. Taxis are plentiful, passengers are not. If a ruthless driver smells cash, he (I’ve never been in a cab with a woman driver in Poland) can be unflinching in giving you the final inflated tally.

The same is true in Prague. BBC reports that the mayor there decided to test the vulnerability of the foreign tourist by disguising himself as an Italian and then hailing a cab:



His masquerade was so successful that he was overcharged by 500% on his first cab-ride.

Not many mayors could pull this off. Imagine our own (I did some crude “Italianizing” of the photo – sorry, my tools are few and my technological acumen is low; luckily the photo, borrowed from daveformadison.com, already had him sporting a pair of goggles):