Hey buddy, I know you won't go to Brooklyn but could you drive us to Los Angeles? How two friends hailed a yellow cab from New York for a 2,800-mile

Getting a cabbie to take fares to Brooklyn often proves mission impossible. They simply won't drive there.

But two New Yorkers have proved that yellow cabs can leave the city - by hailing one all the way to Los Angeles for $5,000.

Investment banker John Belitsky of Leonia, New Jersey, and Dan Wuebben, from Queens, finally arrived in California yesterday after a 3,000-mile six-day road trip.And they stopped off in Las Vegas on the way where they won $2,000 at the blackjack tables.

The friends hailed the cab at LaGuadia airport last Saturday night after hatching the plan during 32-year-old Wuebben's birthday party.

They agreed a deal with driver Mohammed Alam which would normally have cost $17,000 on the meter. A first class return air fare was $3,494.

Belitsky said: ' It seemed like everybody was away. And I said, let’s do something great and fun and serious and magical and bigger than us.

'Do you think a cab would take us from New York to LA?'

'It was a great idea. We've met a lot of fun people, seen a lot of interesting things. I proved my father wrong.'

Wuebben, a professor, said: 'You walk out of New York City, you hail a cab. They're supposed to take you anywhere, and you want to go to LA!'

Driver Alam's family were unhappy about the trip. "I said, no, crying. I will be fine. I'll come back very soon, 'Alam said.

He loved the wide open roads he found outside New York, telling KCNC-TV: 'There are no people. New York is too crowded, a lot of people, a lot of cars. There are no cars here.'

The two friends have yet to decide whether they will fly or drive back to New York. The cab driver says a friend will help him make the journey home.