Last year, Fox 5 exposed some major pitfalls to the city’s supposedly handicap accessible cabs, and now we have some big changes to report. Some say part of the city’s new, high-tech plan for cab drivers could make your cab ride more dangerous. Here’s Fox 5′s Arnold Diaz.
: Sorry I meant 11 points for suspension in New York State.
: Just one more. Do you know 6 points of DMV n TLC will suspend ur licence n 10 points revocation as cab driver when 11 points for regular driver? Isn't it also unconstitutional when rules r made without representation without notification to drivers before and after enacting?
: Triple next to double parked car is no no no but impossible not to pick up or drop off next to parked cars in Midtown. Then again that's why it's easy volume tickets? Try to guess what they are thinking. And the ticket for improper turn for cabdrivers
: I almost got a ticket at NE corner on 8th Avenue side. I had to drop them off next to a parked car cause they were going to Penn station in a hurry to catch a train. Cop said I was obstructing traffic n I should've dropped them in the middle of the block where there was a space. But I insisted with passenger story and he let me go luckily. Basically it's not right or wrong or logic or making sense. They are up to giving tickets n now I know naively. I will say drop off as far as from that corner or whatever ur trick. Being screamed at is lesser evil than getting a ticket.
: We need to pay close attention why these poor cabbies getting hefty fines!
: 1A35 and 1V20 (SBV-176)! -Let us know why the cops pulled you over at Penn Station 31st Street and 8th Avenue?
: Sohag, do you want to sell your app? Email me - mark@yellowcabnyc.com
: Need day driver with clean record , age over 25 , for Ford escape. Lease 625 weekly. Contact 347-784-7424
: Please get the update of my app "End Shift" for the yellow cab drivers from the Apple App store. Thanks!
: day shift driver needed for ford scape 2012 $635 carteret nj 718 744 5154
: Monday,tuesday and friday dayshift available in East Elmhurst 95th & Astoria Blvd if interested please call 646 207 1037 thankyou
: I am a driver looking for part time day- shiftTue-Thurs_Fri- I am also available for night shift on Tue-Thurs-Fri-and Sun. Call 646-641-6868
: I am looking a car for night shift or 24 hour car for two drivers in queens if intrested plz call 347 866 4742
: I need a car for night shift or 24 hr car for two drivers
: 48 yr old driver with tlc but have to pass test Call me mid feb 347 870 7827 Live in Brooklyn avail for day/night shift
: For sale Ford Escape Hybrid 2011, asking $19000. Serious Buyers Only. Call: 845-800-9845
: 2012 ford escape brand new $15000 917-650-1372
: need cab for two drivers day and night, just hybrid! no crown victoria - call 7186661625
: Because is nobody cares when the cab driver loses his money. Taxi security cameras cost money. Only stripped cabs with GPS, even the built-in radio is a luxury.
: Why isn’t a security camera in cabs to protect cabdrivers from unruly riders, who doesn’t pay the cab-fare?
: Yellow cab available in Richmond Hill for more than 2 months... 7days a week... 4am to 4pm.. Call: 718-864-1114
: hi,iam looking for car to drive day shift in woodside queens..please contact me at # 6468089585
: I m looking for Day shift in richmond Hill Ny 347 592 4866
: need cab to drive sat,sun 11am to 3am(double) OR sat,sun night shift.can change in city or nj.646 287 1972
: dude edan, you deduct the lease, toll ,mta tax, gas and divide the # of days you drive and divde the hours you work per day.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot...
{ 34 comments… read them below or add one }
Mercciful God, there are no words. Has there ever, since man first walked erect, been a more self-inflated, supercillious, in-over-his-head motherfucker than our late unlamented Commissioner, Matthew Daus.
Kudos to Arnold Diaz for his reporting. Of course, as every cabbie is painfully aware, the TLC under Daus impossd draconian restrictions on the use of hands-free-cellular phones and GPS Navigators, and yet here they concoct a system where they want the cab driver to exchange TEXT MESSAGES while driving inside of 120 seconds.
Never mind that text messaging while driving is a thousand times more dangerous than using a blue tooth or entering some GPS coordinates at a red light.
Never mind that there are very few places during peak daytime hours for a cabbie to legally pull over to the curb.
I wish Mister Yassky well in his tenure, as the bar for comptence and professionalism has been set so low by politcal hack hall of famer Daus that a snake could not limbo rock under it.
[img]http://www.yellowcabnyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Abbott and Costello, Who’s On First.jpg[/img]
May I ask why this two-year-old story is relevant today?
Story was Updated on Friday, 09 Jan 2009. We posted part 1 a while ago however missed part two when it first came out. It was later brought to our attention by someone from disablednyc.com and it is now posted.
To Chip Stern. What text messages R U talking about, 120 seconds to respond? Daus certainly earned & deserved your accolades, having spent almost his entire time setting up and requiring credit advertising dispatch systems in every NYC cab generating even more income for the Greenbaum Sherman et al., conglomerate billions, in return for ABNORMAL surveillance of a work sector, while playing tricks on them. Without even mentioning it, other than to say the 12 times inflated$10,000+ system for each individual cab would be paid by it, ADVERTISING RIGHTS IN EVERY NYC CAB, not just their own, were granted to Sherman Greenbaum et al. DID THIS SLIP PAST YOU? THIS WAS KNOWN AS THE DAUS CONNECTION. Sombody said it better, the hot shot meter and DIM PIM GPS looks and operates like the NASA launch control panel. Are U there, Houston? 120 seconds to answer? before satellite lasers shoot you down?
To Dixie Flyer. DIM-wit and PIM-wit and GPS-wit – TLC Nitwit – Virtual cabbie TLC communicator helmet with goggles.
While Allan Fromberg is on the line, would someone ask him to have the Rector Street Rectors RECTIFY the Monthly List of Medallion Transfers/Sales by making sure it contains date of transfer/sale, Purchaser corporation and principal name, Buyer corporation and principal name, Medallion Number, Sale/Purchase/Transfer Price. Please go back at least to 2000. Cabbies and private owners would like to be able to click and see it without a hike down to Rector Street to copy them down.
Houston, we have a problem.
Not Dollar Van, $2 van. Need to keep it full of passengers. Need to keep advertising OUT, CC out.
To Chip Stern. Oh, did Daus walk erect? Hadn’t noticed.
Does anyone know how the limousine drivers, dollar vans and gypsy cabbies did keep advertising TV OUT?
To CreditCardCabbie, they kept the advertising TV out because they were not directly within the Sherman Greenbaum et al., sphere of trickery, influence & euphemistic lies.
To Bhairavi Desai. The NYTWA Alliance better spread it around to the 45,000 cabbies: start digging trenches & foxholes TO FIGHT what the Sherman Greenbaum machine plans for them: 45,000 cabbies [who do the work, who generate every nickel of income for the rich parasites] are going to be NOT ONLY computer dispatched, and PAY FOR THOSE SALARIES, AND BE REQUIRED TO DO VOUCHER WORK at percentage loss THAT WILL OCCUR, IF THEY ARE renters through their LEASE RENT GOING UP. AND WITH THE GPS from a certain garage they will be given locales within which to work. They will DICTATE who can go to the airports, and with computer dispatch, and of course it will BE TEXT on the screen [that is what computer dispatch of jobs is], if there is a complaint that cabbie did not pick up the dispatch, the METER WILL BE SHUT OFF until it is resolved. Driver will have to call and explain, while getting busy signals, because that phone is purposefully off the hook!!!
You see, 7/8 of a dispatch system was installed by the Greenbaum Sherman machine, when only a credit card slider and meter system were needed! That is the reason for the DIM and PIM, and of course that NOT MENTIONED MUCH DAILY advertising take on the yellow cab business, no one talking about!!!! Millions every day.
And the private owners will all have to pay for COMPUTER DISPATCH [garages who are not the Greenbaum Sherman et al., will have to pay them [at a numbers discount] to have their medallions on the forced dispatch system. It will take, eventually, $300 a month from every private medallion, and a little less for the 5,000 medallions owned by garages other than Greenbaum Sherman et al.
What is a voucher? Paper coupon books given to large employers like hospitals, banks, stock market, where employees can write a “voucher” paper coupon. When the driver presents the “voucher” at his garage to be paid, the garage will take a percentage of that and give the cabbie the rest, and then the garage will charge the “voucher” client a percentage above the real cost, for the pleasure. Through this the garage can get 20% of that business, some from the cabbie, some from the “voucher” client.
To Chip Stern. More re: Matthew Daus. U play into the hands of the Sherman Greenbaum Mayor TLC MACHINE when you describe Daus’ dirt-pressed ethics bar. It the MACHINE DESIGN: MACHINE accountability-escape using a series of commissioners. It is not that Daus made decisions of a snake who could not worm under his own dirt-pressed ethics limbo bar. He was TOLD what he was going to achieve at the OUTSET, by the MACHINE. It wasn’t that Daus made a series of criminal and unethical mistakes victimizing the cabbies. IT WAS THE MACHINE PLAN, MACHINE design: the auctions, the series of auctions [not just one], the shooting-star hikes in medallion prices, and FORCING the GPS & ADVERTISING RIGHTS INTO EVERY SINGLE NYC cab. Hiding thru omission the fact that the equipments installed were 7/8 of a computerized dispatch system with an unnecessary advertising screen. Credit debit card processing fees were PEANUTS compared to millions a day in advertising, though credit debit cards were USED as the excuse, the reason. Poor New York City cab riders were forced into a 25% increased meter fare, so that cash could go straight into the MACHINE coffers. Did every poor cab rider want to pay 25% to enhance the Greenbaum Sherman Mayor TLC MACHINE, when they didn’t want to use a credit card? Do the New York City riders who spend an average of 12 minutes in a cab want to be bombarded with fees to use wireless? Oh, excuse me, it is the cabbies who will pay it, no? So, Chip, you are supposed to villify Matthew Daus (and he WAS a co-conspirator) as the ONE who DID all this and he is now gone, when in fact it was the MACHINE, and the MACHINE IS STILL THERE. You are supposed to have hope with new Commissioner Yassky, who is NEXT IN THE SERIES TO follow the orders of the MACHINE, and it will still be more and more money coming from the cabbies’ hands to be put into MACHINE hands. I think, Chip, you knew this, but you didn’t say it.
Matthew Daus was hired to do it, and he did it. Likely if you confronted him face to face, he’d say he was forced to do it and that’s why he left. This wouldn’t be correct, he was hired to do all the things he did by the MACHINE, and when he was DONE, he took off. To be replaced by the next MACHINE MAN COMMISSIONER YASSKY. NYC cabbies are supposed to remember how bad Daus was, and what HE did. It was not him, it was the MACHINE still there today, the Greenbaum, Sherman, Mayor TLC MACHINE.
Daus was HIRED to do IT, and HE did IT. Confronted face to face, he’d say he was forced to do IT & that’s why he left. This is not so, HE was hired to victimize NYC cabbies and riders, to do all that HE did by the MACHINE, and when he was DONE, he TOOK OFF, to be replaced by the next MACHINE MAN, Commissioner Yassky [200 large every year]. NYC cabbies are supposed to remember how bad DAUS was, and what HE did. It was NOT Daus, it was the MACHINE still HERE today: the Greenbaum, Sherman, Mayor TLC MACHINE.
Someone asked why Commish Yassky’s NOT going to lease garages & talking to cabbies? Likes radio stations, public venues. On the lighter side, here’s a possible reason WHY! When confronted with the awful truth, face to face, by cabbies, Yassky might need to run to the garage toilet. Surely you understand the SIGNIFICANCE of this, and Yassky’s suits are too tight to permit him carrying around a full roll of toilet paper. Soon lease garages will have pay toilets: $1 per 3-minute use, another $1 if you need toilet paper dispenser. Expect toilets to look the same.
WHATever Machine does, no punishment. Cabbie fails to serve Money Machine, $350 fine refuse credit debit card, $250 fine talk on cell phone. Then after revoking Hack license, Money Machine still coming after cabbie, to take house, small bank account, kitchen table, to satisfy accumulated levies. Will the Money Machine ever stop? Not as long as its fingers are GREEN. The unstoppable Green [Money] Machine.
Another credit card scam: 1 of 3 riders pretends to pay with credit card [knows it doesn't work, not valid] to FLUSH OUT THE CAB FARE from his 2 pal riders, who finally dig up the cash. This takes 10 minutes. Meanwhile we note the 1 guy has instructed cab to stop at a spot right by an ATM, a little short of the stated destination, probably is in case the other 2 riders don’t have the cash!!! Meanwhile, cabbie is holding up traffic for 2 miles while this charade and loss of time/money goes on.
Cabbies are too busy & mesmerized – they do their job driving the cab without thinking about fighting back, and let regulators do the rest! This is a reason our salary is chipped away, and we are getting backwards to the point, when our parents did better 30-40 years ago. What can the average cabdriver show from his income? The truth is, most of them a week away from being homeless, if they don’t work for 6 days. In the western world NYC cabdriver is one of the poorest hard workers. More cabbies from other countries own their taxi, and have a car, motorcycle, house, same in Germany, England, and plenty of other European countries. Simply, because this new generation of NYC cabbies has a mentality, “I keep going, and to make more money, I work longer hours”. “I know is hard to make GOOD money, but I always make some”. What can I do? We hear it all the time! It is hard for NYC cabbies to get off the 12-hour day/6 day a week treadmill to fight, speak, or change anything, and that is why the Money Machine takes their pay, and victimizes them. NYC cabbies need to speak out with one 45,000-VOICE.
To most of the posters here: You are all delusional and paranoid. If most of what you are saying was true, no one would be driving taxis. You should all get a life. No one in their right minds works all the hours taxi drivers do in the conditions you describe (some of them are true) if they weren’t making money!
To Reality Cabbie. ‘Delusional & paranoid’ descriptions of allegations are usually the ‘last stand’ claims (and defenses) by a perpetrator who is praying there is an evidence skip. It wouldn’t matter on this website because 45,000 cabbies know the cabbies’ comments are all true!! Making money? What would Yassky & Fromberg do if 25% of their pay suddenly disappeared? Suddenly $1,000 a week is missing out of your $200,000 annual salary? As long as it seems like Yassky & Fromberg have peeked out above the radar, a message to them: Cabbies would like to see the Monthly Transfers of Medallions, on the City of New York, TLC website give some relevant information: actual date of transfer/sale, corporation and principal name of purchaser, corporation and principal name of seller, medallion #, and price. The Monthly Transfers of Medallions, and the past months’ archives contain NOTHING verifiable, and if one were trying to assess anything about it as accurate, it does not provide the merest basic information expected in a list of transfers/sales. Simply put, cabbies and private owners would like to see more information about medallion sales prices that in 4 years sky-rocketed from $200,000 to $750,000 each. They would like to see these bonafide sales on said website. Any problem with that?
To Reality Cabbie, aka Fromberg & Yassky. All 45,000 cabbies WISH they were ‘delusional and paranoid,’ then none of these horrible happenings would be true. A NASA launch control panel in every cab stealing 25% of cabbies’ fares, including the unmentioned free advertising rights in every cab worth millions every single day, TAKEN without a by your leave. Every cabbie tailed by a White & Gold Escape Angel all day long who’s handing out tickets and fines. The MAIN FOCUS of the NYC cab business cartel is on the cabbies’ pay. Why would it be anywhere else? The cabbies’ daily earnings are what FEEDS this billionaire going on trillionaire cartel.
I’m not doubting your complaints. In fact I agree they are real.
I’m just saying that if you have these complaints and continue to drive then you are just punishing yourself.
Are you making any money? If so, it can’t be all bad.
If not then find another job. Your not going to change the status quo even if the 14th amendment abolished slavery. You have a choice to be free and do what ever you please! This is America!
To Reality Cabbie. Cab driving is addictive – it is outside freedom from stationery jobs. There is freedom to choose to take a break during the day and make less money, which is entirely different from the MACHINE stealing it and shrinking cabbies’ pay day by day. There is freedom to choose to work harder and longer to make more money. It is social between driver and rider. That the MACHINE wants to get inside the cab between driver and rider is ABNORMAL. Now you say the comments you described as ‘delusional & paranoid’ are real complaints? Which is it?
It is hard for a cabbie with a debt load to change to another profession, especially with the outside addiction. Certainly, a cabbie cannot work two jobs as a way to transition to another job.
Now you say the comments you described as ‘delusional & paranoid’ are real complaints?
I guess what I meant was that although they are real to complain is ‘delusional & paranoid. This is because it’s ‘delusional to think that complaining is going to change it.
You are absolutely correct about Cab Driving being addictive. The freedom you describe can be found in very few jobs. But if the negative side you describe about powers you have no control over is keeping you from making ends meet then you have to consider other options.
That’s all I’m trying to say!
To Reality Cabbie. Victimization of NYC cabbies CAN be stopped. First it must be described in precise vocabulary. A spotlight on the cochroaches, those doing the victimization must be identified by every cabbie so that when there is opportunity to ‘speak at any podium,’ the cabbies know how to describe their victimization in one voice with correct terms and identification of the MACHINE that is taking pay out of their hands, to acquire trillionaire status. The first thing cabbies must say is: every aspect of the NYC cab business is PAID for by the cabbie’s work earnings, pay from his hands. The billionaire going on trillionaire conglomerates, cartels, machines are fed daily by pay from the cabbies’ hands. THEN, every move of the TLC & machine must be interpreted by cabbies in such a way to SPOTLIGHT how the move is going to take money from the cabbie and give it to the trillionaires – we all know that any move made will do that, otherwise there would be NO MOVE.
Dershowitz Cabbie: Ok, I admire your determination. But just where is this forum going to be? Who has the power to stop the abuse? How will you get them to act? There are many abuses. But, don’t blame those who have invested in ownership of the medallions. There are those who own many that are referred to as conglomerates and I understand how the bigger they are the worse it is for the drivers. But then there are small owners that also drive, yes I’m one of them, who treat drivers very fairly. So don’t put all owners into the same catergory.
Make your list here: I’ll even start it for you:
MTA..They have no business in our business….
CC companies…Yes, business is up from these transactions. But the CC companies forced themselfs on us and demand too much for their service. Passengers who use this service should share in the expense. The CC companies should also settle for less. Drivers should be allowed to have their own merchant accounts and pay the fees that are now only around 3.5%. They should not have to pay 5% to the owners who handle the tranactions for them
Dershowitz Cabbie, go on and add to this let’s see who listens and acts!
A conglomerate, a cartel, a machine is more than just medallion owners owning 1500 medallions, 1000 medallions, they are also medallion BROKERS, they are also medallion INSURERS, and they are medallion LENDERS. They have their iron fingers around the neck of everyone else. Offering credit card acceptance should be optional for the private owners. If the big fleet garages (they are the Sherman Greenbaum cartel) want to install a credit card machine in every one of THEIR cabs, let them. If driver renters want to rent a cab under those conditions, let them. The credit card acceptance must be optional and it should have been left that way. This is all about ADVERTISING. You cannot mount a defense and blockade against any of these parasitic moves unless the voices are one. Here is an example of a DIVIDED voice if they even know it. I have been reading comments of Attorney Marc Estrich for the Boston bunch who filed a $1 million lawsuit in Suffolk Superior Court (state court) on behalf of the BTOA (Boston Taxi Owners Association). Attorney Estrich is sending a loud and clear false message to everyone via the news media: what he doesn’t like about the credit/debit card systems. He says the suit will be dropped if the regulators meet with the BTOA to negotiate changes in policies. What he doesn’t realize is that with every single word he utters he is saying [we accept the credit card advertising GPS systems] change them a little bit. Is this like you being charged, tried, and sentenced to 20 years in jail for something you didn’t do, and then when your attorney visits you in jail, and you try to talk about the witnesses that were never contacted, alibi, etc., YOUR LAWYER says what is it you don’t like about JAIL? You say the mattress is too thin, attorney says I can get you a better mattress. You say, I miss my family, my kids are growing up, attorney says I can get you more visitation, I only see daylight 1 hour a week, attorney says I can get you more outside exercise time. Hey, what about the false 20-year incarceration? Unfortunately, sometimes the ‘activists’ have those machine connections to the regulators. The BTOA comes out of an insurance company in Boston that brags about insuring 80% of all taxis in the STATE. Most of the BTOA financial supports ARE small owners in (varying numbers}of medallions, who DO NOT DRIVE A CAB. Originally the association formed because of the regulation that all vehicle placed in service as a cab had to be NOT ONLY BRAND NEW, but HYBRID BRAND NEW. BTOA got rid of the HYBRID BRAND NEW, BUT NOT THE brand new. Most of these small owners have their medallions out on LEASE to drivers who own their own vehicles. Suddenly drivers who wanted to [long-term lease] a medallion would have to come up with the PRICE OF A BRAND NEW HYBRID, NOW A BRAND NEW VEHICLE just to lease. These small owners foresaw a DEARTH of cabbies wanted to buy such an expensive vehicle to lease a medallion, killing all their retirement plans!! However, suddenly inserting an a NEW CAR PAYMENT into the economic model of small medallion owners & leasers could not work in the small Boston area of predominantly a 6 mile circle diameter where most of the taxi business is located. This BTOA got private operators to financiall support the organization, but in two years, while all the credit card ADVERTISING SYSTEMS, SCREENS CUT INTO PARTITIONS, were being installed, the BTOA was promising that the whole taxi regulations [403] would be broken, so people contributed. Unfortunately, not one word in the court case referred to credit card systems, while flocks of drivers who had no access to the papers showed up at every single court hearing and motion. Finally, the federal judge told them ‘credit cards’ were not in his jurisdiction. So as it stands, I am told, advertising credit card and computer dispatch systems are in, when the regulation only specified an electronic back seat slider! Once it was all done, Boston’s version of Daus changed the regulation to include all that was installed and then hot-footed it out of town. Guess what? Boston used to place in service vehicles 3 or 4 years old with less than 120,000 miles on them. Instead of going to 2 or 3 years old, with say 90,000 miles, they required new, and still require new when the economic models and the common sense of it dictated used. But who is going to INSURE all these new vehicles? Boston insurance costs $6,000 or more annually and includes NO COLLISION, property damage only. On a Boston lease the owner pays the insurance, this doubles the insurance premium to $12,000. Is there any hope for the Boston court case? No, not if the attorney is talking about making ‘credit card GPS Advertising systems’ better!!! The MACHINE still got the advertising rights, the card fees, and a cabbie watchdog like no other.
To Reality Cabbie. Oh, El Sherman Greenbaum machine press releases say cities notice 3% increase in business w/cc. Ha ha A cabbie is an airport player & takes a certain number of jobs a day, after a wait. The number of jobs does not go up with credit card business, and he takes his random job, and the money it brings. His money does not go up 13% with credit cards, it goes down. And given the various cities and how they work, airports, or not, THIRTEEN PERCENT INCREASE IS A MADE UP NUMBER, AND IT DOESN’T HAPPEN!!! The Machine can’t prove that the number of fares and revenue are up by 13 percent, and the cabbies can’t seem to prove it has not gone up. It takes a mathematician to tell you that a 13 percent increase in business used in every city to SELL THE ADVERTISING INSTALLATION, cannot be correct!!!! Ask Mr. Fermi, he will tell you. Don’t go by the Machines which quote some cab driver with a head tumor as saying his business has gone up!!! I guess the same cab driver with a head tumor flies around to every city, so the MACHINES can make the false claim.
I can start a list. Every TLC move or discussion has to be defined. You have to read it and watch it, then define it. For example, I read that TLC is thinking that quintessential NYC cab should come from the factory with WIRELESS. This is a move, it is a mention. Who gets rewards for this move? Let’s define it. It is a PODIUM SPOTLIGHT move, which means the reward for the wireless is the mayor gets to go up onto the podium and say, “Every NYC cab has a wireless connection.” Now, examine it and how will the wireless connections get into the cab, and who is going to pay for it? Will there be a charge? Will cabbies have more bookwork to do, will they have to wait at destination for wireless uses to ‘finish up?’ Who will supply the money for this? Of course, every dime and nickel will be supplied by the cabbie, through what the cabbie earns. Does the rider want it? With a 12-minute average ride (the Machine says) of NYC riders, I doubt it. So is this another move generated by the machine that will bring them revenue somehow, and it is sold to the mayor by the mayor getting his PODIUM SPOTLIGHT reward.
Every move, every discussion of something new by the TLC discussions or regulation, must be examined and taken apart by who will be rewarded, who will PAY FOR IT? Cabbies feed the whole NYC cab machine. Wireless will not be FREE. Someone is going to be rewarded? Perhaps the Quintessential Cab will be touted as COSTING MORE, and fleet lease rates will go up. This wireless will kill the private owners.
Matthew Daus is a horse’s patootie. Every time you google his name that fact jumps up at you on page one.
It looks like taxi drivers will have to strike again.
http://matthewdausisahorsespatootie.blogspot.com/
[img]http://www.yellowcabnyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/yasky.jpg[/img]
pocket pool anyone?
As if we didn’t know, this is a current article:
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20100715/INS/100719924#
If you have trouble logging on to above link here is the text:
The $177 phone call to dispatch
The Taxi & Limousine Commission is acknowledging the failure of a recently concluded two-year $1 million program to provide dispatch service to wheelchair users. Hailing accessible cabs has long been nearly impossible due to their rarity, but incredibly, the dispatch initiative did not help.
Calls to the dispatcher, expected to average 250 a day, hovered around eight—or about $177 a call. Only 2,701 wheelchair users of an estimated 60,000 citywide used the service.
The program was intended to gauge demand for wheelchair-accessible cabs. Officials had hoped increased demand would spur more taxi owners to outfit their cabs with ramps.
But drivers hated the program, taxi-industry executives said during an Assembly hearing yesterday. A requirement that drivers with accessible cabs enroll in the dispatch program led many to avoid purchasing such cabs altogether. Drivers skipped mandatory training programs on operating wheelchair ramps and ignored calls for rides, preferring instead to be fined.
Wait times for riders using the dispatch service averaged 30 minutes, the TLC says. Dispatchers did not have GPS systems to locate the cabs nearest to customers, although the TLC says that wouldn’t have mattered because cabbies could refuse up to two calls per shift.
TLC Commissioner David Yassky says the program may have been doomed from the start because many wheelchair users are on fixed incomes and don’t take cabs.
Ethan Gerber, executive director of the Greater New York Taxi Association, whose members operate many of the city’s 240 wheelchair-accessible taxicabs, says the program’s failure was predictable because taxis, unlike livery cars, are designed for street hails, not dispatch service. Livery cars did not participate in the program. A TLC report on the program is due later this summer.
Please continue discussion on the forum: link