History Main / NotMyDriver

* The villain [[EverythingsBetterWithSpinning Whirlwind]] did this one time to ComicBook/TheWasp, who he had a long-standing VillainousCrush on (he'd once been her actual limo driver years earlier). Unfortunately, he decided to reveal himself immediately, while they were still parked in front of Avengers' Mansion, a building renowned for being full of superheroes. His fellow Masters of Evil coming to the rescue isn't enough to stop the asskicking that follows.

* In the film adaptation of ''Manga/{{Spriggan}}'', Yu Ominae quickly realises someone has done a KillAndReplace on his ARCAM driver in Turkey when he sees another car full of goons following them. He proceeds to throw the driver out of the vehicle, leading to a CarChase.

* In the film adaptation of ''Manga/Spriggan'', Yu Ominae quickly realises someone has done a KillAndReplace on his ARCAM driver in Turkey when he sees another car full of goons following them. He proceeds to throw the driver out of the vehicle, leading to a CarChase.

* Beautifully subverted in series 2 episode 9 of ''Series/{{Life}}'', where Charlie tries to kidnap one of the people involved in his imprisonment. "You misunderstand me, this isn't a kidnapping. This, detective, is a kidnapping."

* Played Straight in ''Film/TheGame'', when Nicholas finds out that the cab he gets on the street is owned by CRS.

* In one episode of ''Series/ForeverKnight'', a man kidnaps a rich society lady and her daughter by killing their chauffeur and taking the driver's seat while the two women are out shopping.

* In ''Radio/TheShadow'' #100, a wealthy gambler leaving his club with his poker winnings discovers that his driver is not really his driver when his car turns into a deserted alley. A few moments later, he is murdered and robbed.

* This, mixed with WhatAnIdiot, caused one British soldier to become a POW during the African Campaign in [=WW2=] -- when the soldier's motorcycle got bogged down, he flagged down the first car he saw, assuming he was behind British lines. The first car he found was a German staff car. He got in, and [[TooDumbToLive didn't recognize the obvious German uniforms until it was too late.]]

* The MO of the "Cabbie Killer" in ''Series/{{CSINY}}''.

* In ''Series/{{Silicon Valley}}'' season 4, episode 1 opens with Richard Hendricks pretending to be an Uber driver to kidnap a venture capital executive in an attempt to pitch Pied Piper's improved video chat.

* On ''Series/{{Silicon Valley}}'' season 4, episode 1 opens with Richard Hendricks pretending to be an Uber driver to kidnap a venture capital executive in an attempt to pitch Pied Piper's improved video chat.

* In ''Film/TheKarateKidPartII'', [[TheDragon Chozen]] greets Mr. Miyagi and Daniel La Russo at the airport under the pretense of driving them to Miyagi Sr.'s village, only to meet [[BigBad Sato]]. After Sato confronts Miyagi, they're left stranded.
* ''Film/BestSeller''. A cab driver says he has to stop off for cigarettes. His behavior is nervous and when he vanishes from the store, the protagonists jump out of the cab which explodes moments later.
* In Jesse's first nightmare at the start of ''Film/ANightmareOnElmStreetPart2FreddysRevenge'', Freddy replaces the bus driver just before the bus careers off into the desert. (The original driver is actually played by Robert Englund ''sans'' Freddy makeup.) [[spoiler:The same thing happens at the end of the movie.]]
* ''Film/{{The Circle|1925}}'': Teddy and Elizabeth are surprised to find that the man driving them away from the mansion is not the regular chauffeur, but Arnold, Elizabeth's husband.
* The fake taxi version is used twice in ''A Most Wanted Man'' (2014). In the second case it's easier, as the person calling for the taxi is one of their agents, so he just calls them directly instead of the taxi company. They've also suborned the person who was originally supposed to pick them up.
* In ''Film/TheDiamondArm'', this is how the smugglers try to trap Gorbunkov: they are aware that a taxi (driven in fact by a policeman) is going to pick him up, so one of them makes sure to arrive at the place earlier.
* In ''Film/{{The Battle Of Algiers}}'' the ambulance version of this trope is implied when one commandeered by the rebels drops off some dead French gendarme at a busy public area of the French quarter. The rebels in the ambulance go on to have a rampage across the district before being stopped. It is one of the signs that things in Algiers are going FromBadToWorse.
* Towards the end of ''Film/TheGentlemen'', Mickey leaves the fish market and gets into the Range Rover, only to receive a text from Ray telling him not to get into the car; a few seconds too late. He looks up and finds his driver Dave has been replaced by a couple of Russian thugs. [[spoiler:At the very end of the film, Fletcher gets in a black cab to go to the airport only to find that Ray is sitting in the drivers seat. And the back doors won't open...]]

* ''Film/ThePhantomOfTheOpera2004'' knocks out and replaces Christine's carriage man so that ''he'' can take her to the cemetery and try to abduct her again.

* Generally a common trope in spy novels. In ''Sky Masters'' by Creator/DaleBrown, the US Ambassador to ASEAN gets a message from a Filipino politician this way.

* In the ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' audio drama "The Crimes of Thomas Brewster", the Doctor and Evelyn, having been questioned by the police in relation to a new London crime gang run by a man called "the Doctor", are then told MI5 wants to speak to them and put into a police car. The driver of the car then tells them, in a very LondonGangster voice, that they aren't going to MI5 at all. It transpires that he works for a rival gang and has ''also'' mistaken the Doctor for the crime boss of the same name.

* A trailer for ''VideoGame/HitmanContracts'' featured this. A rich businessman has discovered that he is about to be assassinated by 47 and promptly escapes the apartment building he's in, taking flight in a limo that's waiting outside. When the driver is told to start driving, he lowers the divider window to reveal [[ScannableMan the barcode tattoo]].
--> '''Businessman''': ''Oh, sh-*silenced gunshot* ''

* The heroine in ''Manga/TenYoriMoHoshiYoriMo'' falls for one of these. Justified because she only just moved in with a rich family and wouldn't know all their drivers yet. What wasn't justified was why the driver didn't just pop her in the car right there before she caught on.

* ''LightNovel/HeavyObject'' has a case where the victim was more evil than the driver. When the Gigant Hustler Event ended with one of his [[HumongousMecha Objects]] destroyed, Acres Kiss-of-Rose (a.k.a. Azathoth) retreats to his car and planned a FalseFlagOperation in an attempt to regain respect, only to find out too late that his driver was Nyarlahotep, who wanted revenge on Acres for his family's death, in disguise.

* Huge LampshadeHanging the ''ComicBook/{{Miracleman}}'' story "Spy Story" by Creator/NeilGaiman, where a paranoid secret agent goes through the following [[IKnowYouKnowIKnow tortuous logic]]. She then gives up and takes the first cab that comes along. It's driven by another spy, of course, but then [[spoiler:so are all the cabs in the city]].
-->''You never take the first cab that comes along. A rookie knows that. And if a rookie knows that, then the opposition knows that too. Fine. So you never take the second cab that comes along. Which leaves the first cab or the third cab. But you never take the first cab that comes along. Which means it's the third cab. [[IKnowYouKnowIKnow But they'll have thought of that]], so you ignore the first three cabs. Which is just what they'll be expecting you to do, so they'll have their man in the fourth cab. Which means... Which means...''
* In an issue of ''ComicBook/SuicideSquad'', ComicBook/BlackOrchid impersonated bad guy William Heller's chauffeur. She does it not to kidnap him, however, but so she can eavesdrop on conversations between him and his advisers. She let the real driver out of the trunk after completing her mission, and hypnotised him into keeping quiet about having been kidnapped and replaced.
* ''ComicBook/{{Tintin}} in America'' has our hero get into a cab driven by one of the gangsters he's after. He escapes and gets into a police car, but that one is smashed by accomplices in a muscle car. Later, he calls the police after another assassination attempt, but his phone line is hijacked and the police car turns out to also be driven by gangsters.
* ComicBook/{{Wolverine}} pulled this on a cocky young mob boss who threatened to kill a little girl and her father if Wolverine didn't kill a witness under federal protection for him (obviously, Wolverine didn't go through with it). When the mob boss went for the hidden gun in his limo Wolverine just told him not to embarrass himself. Fredo, realizing he has absolutely no chance of overpowering Wolverine, relents.
* Variant occurs in the ''ComicBook/{{Catwoman}}'' tie-in to ''[[ComicBook/BatmanNoMansLand No Man's Land]]''. Selina hijacks a military helicopter after [[MuggedForDisguise replacing one of the pilots]], and her copilot doesn't realize this until she removes her helmet.

* The villain [[EverythingsBetterWithSpinning Whirlwind]] did this one time to ComicBook/TheWasp, who he had a long-standing VillainousCrush on (he'd once been her actual limo driver years earlier). Unfortunately, he decided to reveal himself immediately, while they were still parked in front of Avengers' Mansion, a building renowned for being full of superheroes. His fellow Masters of Evil coming to the rescue isn't enough to stop the asskicking that follows.
* ''ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse'': In the Uncle Scrooge story "Zio Paperone e lo slogan invincibile", John D. Rockerduck and Scrooge are in a race to Scotland to obtain the MacGuffin. Rockerduck sets out in his private plane. However, Scrooge has foreseen that and had the entire airport crew replaced with disguised members of his own family. Rockerduck only realizes this when he wakes up in Scotland, alone and locked inside his own plane, with Uncle Scrooge and his relatives running away and laughing their heads off.
* ''ComicBook/{{Wanted}}'': [[spoiler:Professor Solomon Seltzer]] is killed off when his driver [[spoiler:Fuckwit]] is impersonated by the shapeshifting right-hand man of a rival Fraternity, [[spoiler:Shithead]].

* In ''ComicBook/HarleyQuinn'' #22, Harley gets picked up from the airport in a limo. Unbeknownst to her, the driver is a henchman working for the villain Zena Bendemova, and Goatboy, her real driver, is BoundAndGagged in a closet somewhere.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Catwoman}}'' #50, Killer Croc pulls this on the Penguin to take revenge on him for having called a CarnivalOfKillers on Catwoman.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Silverblade}}'' #6, the ghost of Brian Vane scares of Sandra's chauffer and takes his place. Unfortunately for him, he cannot hold the physically illusion together as long as he would like and he is forced to drop it halfway through the drive. His purpose was not to kidnap her, but to have with her the conversation Jonathan was refusing to have.

* In ''Film/SpiderMan3'', Eddie Brock kidnaps Mary Jane this way.

* Poked fun at in ''Film/WhatsUpTigerLily'', a GagDub of a Japanese spy movie. The main characters walk into a random cab and promptly tell the driver they want to be kidnapped. He of course, obliges, seeing as how this scene was a straight example of the trope in the original movie.
* 1998's ''Film/{{Godzilla|1998}}'' featured a taxi-napping of Creator/MatthewBroderick's character by Creator/JeanReno's. Subverted in that he's actually the good guy.
* The first act of ''Film/RequiemForADream'' ends with Marlon Wayans making a deal with some black drug kingpins. The partition slides down and Wayans marvels that they have a white driver, only for bullets to start flying; the driver was a hitman for an Italian cartel.
* In ''Film/XMen1'', Mystique and Toad kidnap Senator Kelly by piloting his helicopter to Magneto's island. Somewhat justified: as Mystique can shapeshift to look like anyone at all, she murders and impersonates the senator's real staff.

* Played Straight in ''Film/TheGame'', when Nicholas finds out that the cab he gets on the street is owned by CRS.
* An example of the hero (or should I say VillainProtagonist) using this technique occurs in ''Film/{{Assassins}}'' (1995). Robert Rath, having lost track of rival contract killer Miguel Bain, steals a cab and, upon hearing a radio call about a [[BadHabits priest]] in the area Bain was last seen asking to be taken to the airport, realizes that's his man. Rath intends to shoot Bain when he gets out of the car (as there's a sheet of bulletproof glass between them) but at the last minute Bain sees the driver's ID card is missing and realizes who Rath is, leading to GunpointBanter through the glass.
* Another heroic example occurs in ''Film/UndercoverBlues'', where Jeff Blue stops a bank robbery in progress by booby-trapping their getaway minivan and replacing their getaway driver with himself. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] when he says, "No one ever looks at the driver."
* In ''Film/{{Scrooged}}'', the Ghost of Christmas Past is a taxi driver. He solves the "aggressive real taxi cutting in" problem by [[DrivesLikeCrazy aggressively cutting in himself]]. Crunch.

* In ''Film/UndercoverBrother'', Mr. Feather kidnaps James Brown using this technique. [[spoiler: "James Brown" is actually Undercover Brother wearing a LatexPerfection mask.]]

* Done in ''Film/DeathToSmoochy''. This time, the passenger does not realize who he is (not until ''much'' later in the film), even though the driver's dialogue is incredibly {{Subtext}}-filled.
* In ''Film/LifeIsBeautiful'' the protagonist does this to try to win the heart of the woman he loves.
* In ''Film/TheArtOfWar'' (2000), [[spoiler:this happens at the end with the film's BigBad, after the main character informs the Chinese that she had their ambassador assassinated. After smugly letting the hero know she's a KarmaHoudini, she realizes they're not going to the U.N. building right before the "driver", a Triad, turns around and shoots her in the head]].

* In ''Film/{{Eraser}}'', the {{Big Bad}}s are leaving the courthouse in a limo, talking about the apparent deaths of the protagonists, only to realize that neither of them is responsible for the car bomb. They suddenly stop at train tracks, and the doors lock. The driver runs away, revealing him to be Johnny, a friend of Kruger's. They then get a call from Kruger, who faked his and the girl's deaths. After saying his catch-phrase ("You've just been erased."), he watches as they "catch a train".
* In ''Film/{{Red}}'', the [[spoiler:Vice-President and his Secret Service guards get in a limo marked with the Presidential seal]] while under fire. Cooper tries to warn them, but they don't listen as they think he just wants to escape with them in the armoured limo. Then one guard is knocked out when the limo stops abruptly, and the other is tazered by the driver, who is Moses. The [[spoiler:VP]] then gets the same treatment.
* In the first dream level of ''Film/{{Inception}}'' the protagonists kidnap Fischer this way. Possibly justified in that they designed the place, so they could make sure theirs was the only cab available.
* As listed under {{Literature}}, this is how the bad guy in ''Film/TheBoneCollector'' catches his victims.

* The assassination attempt on Colonel Kudasov in ''Film/TheElusiveAvengers: Crown of the Russian Empire'' combines this and DangerTakesABackseat. First, Kudasov boards a taxi driven by an agent of Monsieur Duc, then the taxi stops briefly and two more agents board the backseat.
* PlayedForLaughs at the end of ''Film/{{Bullshot}}'', where the audience is shown a montage of photographs of TheHero getting married to his LoveInterest. The final photograph reveals the villain is disguised as their chauffeur. [[AndTheAdventureContinues But that is another tale...]]
* In ''ComicStrip/DickTracy vs. Cueball'', Tess gets into a taxi that's being driven by Cueball.
* In the 2000 movie of ''Film/{{Hamlet}}'' (starring Ethan Hawke), the scene where Hamlet intends to kill his uncle Claudius is played this way--Hamlet replaces the chauffeur. Claudius gives his Ignored Epiphany soliloquy in the backseat of his limo.
* In Berry Gordy's ''Film/TheLastDragon'', Arkadian's thugs try to kidnap Laura Charles this way (the first time), before Leroy steps in and beats them to a pulp.
* A heroic version is ''Film/ResidentEvilApocalypse''. When the heroes start winning, Major Cain runs into his helicopter and orders the pilot to take off. When the pilot doesn't respond, Cain angrily confronts him, only to find LJ at the controls instead. LJ then punches him out.
* In ''Film/BodyOfLies'', this happens to the BigBad at the end.
* Likewise in ''The Good Guys Wear Black'' (1978). Creator/ChuckNorris tries to blackmail the SleazyPolitician who's [[BigBad behind everything]] into resigning, but fails. As he's leaving the BigFancyHouse though, he recognises the politician's chauffeur as a man who tried to murder him earlier. When the politician gets into his limousine, he fails to notice his driver is wearing a PornStache until shortly before Chuck drives the limo into the river so he'll drown. Legendary badass that he is, Chuck just swims out of the limo to safety.

* In ''Film/DickTracyVsCueball'', Cueball poses as a taxi driver to abduct Tess when she is posing as socialite Diane Belmont.

As anyone who lives in a large metropolitan area can attest, cabbies and people looking for a taxi are aggressive and a dime a dozen; so [[GambitRoulette the odds]] of a {{Villain}} or his EvilMinions catching their target without another cab swerving in ahead of them, or having a pushy [[{{Muggles}} fare]] cut in front of the victim, are particularly slim. This is also ignoring the possibility of the intended target biking, busing, taking the subway, metro, getting a friend to pick them up, or just plain walking.

* ''LightNovel/HeavyObject'' has a case where the victim was more evil than the driver. When the Gigant Hustler Event ended with one of his [[HumongousMecha Objects]] destroyed, Acres Kiss-of-Rose(a.k.a. Azathoth) retreats to his car and planned a FalseFlagOperation in an attempt to regain respect, only to find out too late that his driver was Nyarlahotep, who wanted revenge on Acres for his family's death, in disguise.

* In ''Film/DickTracyVsCueball'', Cueball poses as taxi driver to abduct Tess when she posing as socialite Diane Belmont.

* In ''Film/DickTRacyVsCueball'', Cueball poses as taxi driver to abduct Tess when she posing as socialite Diane Belmont.

See also TheTaxi, FridgeLogic, GambitRoulette. HarmfulToHitchhikers is a related trope, in which a person is victimized after accepting a ride from a stranger.

* One of the more infamous episodes of [[TheWarOnTerror the Iraqi sectarian war of the 2000s]] involved militias using public service vehicles as covers. In one instance, a group of civilians in Baghdad were kidnapped and executed after militias commandeering an ambulance called for [[DeadlyEuphemism blood donations]] to help the victims of a nearby bombing.

* In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novel ''Discworld/MakingMoney'', LoveableRogue Moist von Lipwig, despite knowing he has powerful enemies, gets into the first hansom cab that comes along, only to jump out the opposite door running like hell when it turns out to be a HoneyTrap. [[ThoseTwoGuys Colon and Nobby]] are nearby to comment on his uncharacteristic GenreBlindness. Similarly, earlier in the book, he got into an unmarked black coach, on the assumption it was the Patrician's. It wasn't.