The Service Economy

My girlfriend met a friend in the city. At the train station, he took a cab home while she waited for a bus. Fifteen minutes later, she noticed a group of taxi drivers standing around a taxi. A guy came out of the cab saying, “Yes, I will call the police.” He went to a phone but didn’t make a call. At this hour, my girlfriend was getting nervous, hoping that this psycho wouldn’t approach her. Only when he did approach her did she see that it was her friend.
What had happened? Right after he’d got into his cab, a taxi driver had opened the door and said, “Get out, you’re coming with me.” Apparently, the drivers use some scheduling mechanism, and the friend’s current driver was breaking the unwritten law. Shocked and dismayed, the friend refused to get out; unimpressed, the taxi drivers refused to let him leave. This stalemate continued until he got out and called a cab to pick him up somewhere else.