Dr Karl memoir: A Periodic Tale reveals Australian science guru Dr Karl Kruszelnicki’s colourful life

Most know him as Australia’s authority on all things science. But as Dr Karl Kruszelnicki reveals in his new memoir, his early days were as colourful as his trademark shirts — from experimenting with drugs to a stint as a roadie. Here, he recounts one of many memorable moments from his time as a taxi driver in Sydney. Early one Saturday night, I picked up five pretty big and fairly rough-looking guys. (Taxis then had bench seats in the front, so they could carry three passengers in the back and two in the front.) I took them from the Inner West into Kings Cross. We were close to their destination, in a skinny one-way street with cars parked on both sides, when a car pulled straight out from the kerb without indicating and rammed straight into the car directly in front of me. I called out, ‘Hang on,’ and braked hard, screeching to a halt. I realised this was going to be drawn out and messy, given the smashed cars blocking the road, but there was no other car behind me so it was time to hit reverse! Using the official High-Speed Reversing Method as taught to me by experienced taxi drivers, I first flicked on the hazard lights. Pivoting my body towards the front-seat passengers, I slung my left arm across the back of the bench seat and turned to look out the back window. Time was of the essence. The great thing about the High-Speed Reversing Method is that the back end of the car will go in whatever direction you move your right hand on the wheel. Move your hand to the right, and the back end of the car goes to the right. Move it to the left, and the back end goes to the left. No thinking required. With one foot on the accelerator and one foot on the brake, I drove backwards at high speed for about 100 metres, concentrating hard on not running into the parked cars either side of me. I really wanted to get out of this one-way street before another car came along and blocked me in. In just a few seconds I was back on the main street and was relaxed enough to talk to my five burly passengers, who were looking rather impressed. ‘I’ll have to go another way. You cool with that?’ They said sure, and as I dropped them at a sleazy illegal strip joint/casino, one turned back and said, ‘We need a wheelman next Tuesday night. You interested?’ I knew enough criminal slang to know the wheelman drives the getaway car. And I knew I was definitely not interested, for at least three reasons. First, I really didn’t want to get involved with criminal heavies. I had absolutely no interest in jail time. Second, they were asking me, a random taxi driver they’d never met before, to get involved with their heist. I figured it wasn’t that smart to share the details with any passing taxi driver, and if they weren’t that smart then maybe they would get busted, taking me with them. Again, no interest in jail time. Third, I had long ago given up driving on Tuesday nights. It was the worst night for fares, and I didn’t want to start driving Tuesday nights again for anyone, not even a bunch of heavies. But there were five of them and one of me, so I let them tell me all the details about where and when to meet them to drive them to the ‘burg’ (that’s crim talk for ‘burglary’). I took the easy way out and chose the no-show! I really didn’t think that these crims would ever bother tracking me down. I knew nothing about them, and they knew nothing else about me. Taxi driving was a rite of passage for me. It was formative, allowing me to expand my view of the grown-up world, and then make a better version of me. In certain ways it was very risky. One driver I knew well was killed for a lousy forty dollars, and another was beaten to death in the middle of the Sydney CBD. But there was a sense of camaraderie with other drivers, who were non- judgemental of my hippie lifestyle. It turned out to be a good way for me to earn my living for several years. This is an edited extract from A Periodic Tale by Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, $45, published by HarperCollins.