Similarly, on our shores, the myth dies hard. The most perdurable and certainly the most dreary is that of the cabdriver-philosopher. Our columnists still insist upon citing him as the perceptive 'diamond in the rough' social observer. Lucky Miller, a young cabdriver, has his say in this matter. 'A lot of drivers, they'll agree to almost anything the passenger will say, no matter how absurd. They're angling for that tip.
1974.
I forget what documentary it was, but I finally understood the Tom Friedman cab driver thing when he was filmed at a call center in India or similar (sorry, fuzzy memory) and he would say things in kind of a form of a question and then the people he was talking to would basically repeat it back to him.