German man facing charges because he wouldn't pay for his drunken cab ride from Germany to Belgium and back

By JD

AACHEN, Germany, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- German police said a man faces fraud charges after a taxi ride he took with no cash accidentally ended up as a trip to Belgium and back.

Authorities said the 27-year-old Aachen man was drunk when he climbed into a taxicab and asked to be taken "nach Hause," German for "home," and the driver mistook the words for "Hauset," a Belgian village a few miles away, The Local.de reported Wednesday.

The man did not realize he was being taken across the border until the taxi arrived in the village and he explained his actual address. The driver took the man back across the border to his home and billed the passenger $94.65 for the ride.

However, the man did not have any cash and left the cab without paying.

I’ve taken some drunken cab rides in my life – once hopped in a taxi when I was a block from home because I didn’t know where I was. But I’ve never once ended up in a different country than I started in.  You’d think at some point you’d realize you were crossing a border instead of passing through your neighborhood, but I’ve had some long nights at Monday’s so I won’t judge.  (It is the #4 bar in Madison, after all)

PS - I’m not sure what German cab drivers are like, but if this happened in America there's a 100% chance it'd be the driver’s fault, right? Because I can understand what a drunken passenger is mumbling better than one of those poorly disguised Taliban spies a hundred times out of a hundred.