Taxi tips for travelers

When people ask me about the scariest situation I've ever been in, I think back to a taxi ride I took to the Moscow airport in the early '90s. A no-neck guy who looked like a classic Russian mafia thug picked me up in a beat-up old car and drove for an hour down puddle-filled alleys and past derelict apartment buildings. All I could think about were those movie scenes where the good guy is taken ...