INDUSTRY IN REVIEW

By Don McCurdy

Sorry, you can’t do that.

Blaine Young, owner of Yellow Cab of Frederick, Maryland, is reported to want to arm his drivers with an “approved” weapon, even tasers. Tasers? You have to wonder exactly why they can’t just go out and get concealed carry permits. Well, it’s not quite that easy in Maryland.

Now, if you’ve been assaulted or threatened and you have appropriate police reports you can apply for a license. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get it, however.

I especially liked the part about Young having to “email the Taxicab Commission” to get permission. I wonder if I should have asked the government of Maryland if it’s ok for me to express my first amendment rights since they have to approve of someone exercising their second amendment rights? Oh, yeah, I live in Texas.

Here in Houston we had two drivers with concealed carry permits that might not be around if they’d had to have the permission of the Taxicab Commission. Fact is that taxicab drivers are assaulted, robbed, or murdered every day in the United States. Personally, I find it pathetic that honest citizens have to beg the state or anyone else for the right to defend themselves.

The Taxicab Commission can’t protect cab drivers, nor can the police or the politicians that would deprive them of the right to defend themselves. The message seems pretty clear to me, your lives are simply not important enough for us to allow you to carry weapons to defend yourselves regardless of what the Constitution says. What did I miss?


Have you identified the problem?

A recent article out of NYC claims that it’s hard to get a wheelchair accessible taxicab. Really? It’s hard to get a wheelchair accessible taxicab almost everywhere. Why wouldn’t it be that way in NYC?

Well, we all wonder what the problem is? It’s all about the money. No, not the extra amount it takes to buy a wheelchair accessible vehicle. No, not the money they save buying a wheelchair accessible medallion. No, not the $1.3 million the city has invested in dispatching taxis. Dispatching taxis? In NYC? The money in question is the money that the driver makes.


WHAT? How can that be?

I especially liked the comment attributed to Chris Noel “picking up able bodied passengers shouldn’t be their priority.” Good news there, Chris, it’s not their priority. Their priority is feeding their kids. What “should be” is just a boatload of BS, Chris, there’s only “what is”, and “what is” is that drivers are concerned about making money to pay their bills just like the vast majority of working stiffs out there.

Yeah, yeah, I know that they “should” worry more about how long it takes you to get a cab Chris but “what is” is that they worry as much about your problems as you worry about theirs. Pretty much fact is that nobody really gives a rat’s patootie what the driver makes. Legislators only want to mandate their behavior to suit a particular agenda.

Green cabs, wheelchair cabs, neighborhood cabs, whatever. Every city has its “problem,” but what they miss is the solution. Let’s try some basics. What is a taxicab driver, a noble knight concerned only with the welfare of others? A kindly and benevolent soul whose life’s ambition is only to help others? Well, in a word, no. A taxicab driver is a businessman. His daily mission is to make enough money to pay his bills, period. Yes, I know, Chris, that’s not how it “should” be. But let’s close our eyes and pretend.

Say you’re a taxicab driver and you daughter needs braces. No, wait. Say your mother lives in the Swat Valley in Pakistan and you’re trying to get enough money together to bring her to the states. How many “able bodied” passengers do you think you’d pass up on the way to a wheelchair trip you got dispatched to 60 blocks away? We all know what the answer “should” be, Chris, but that’s not really what it is.

So we wonder how much did it cost for the 5.8 million Access-a-Ride trips? Could those trips have been used to incentivize better taxicab service for wheelchair riders? Maybe. There are a lot of ways to skin a cat, but complaining about how other people “should act” won’t get the job done. Well, at least it hasn’t in my world. Perhaps, understanding the real problem might help.


But he’s all better now.

London’s black cab community is up in arms over a recent decision by “senior officials” at the Public Carriage Office (PCO) to allow a man convicted of murdering his wife to be allowed to take the Knowledge tests. Shamsul Haque was reported to have had “diminished capacity” at the time of conviction and had to spend two years in a hospital getting treated for his paranoid schizophrenia. But now they’ve got him all better with the help of some medication. Isn’t that just peachy.

The “senior officials” at the PCO were concerned that there might be a lawsuit if Haque wasn’t allowed to take the tests. None of the officials, and no news articles mentioned concerns that Haque had beaten the rap, not a British term, for what may have been a Muslim honor killing by feigning schizophrenia. In fact, none of the articles mentioned that Haque was a Muslim. My sources report that lower level examiners at the PCO, especially the women, are frightened to conduct the examinations required for Haque to complete the Knowledge testing.

Since potential drivers are dropped from the Knowledge program for the slightest infraction often dating back to their teenage years, it’s hard to understand how this driver managed to convince the “senior officials” at the PCO that he’d be fine now. Makes you wonder if the term “senior officials” means the same in the ever so polite British term for “doddering old fools.”


So how is that not promoting drunk driving?

Taxicab drivers in South Bend, Indiana are up in arms at the South Bend Police ticketing them for stopping in front of local bars despite an ordinance that allows them to stop to pick up passengers. I’m not sure what the motive of the local police might be except, perhaps, that drunk driving arrests are down and they’re looking for a way to pick up the action.

Seriously though, the situation points up a problem that is happening across the country, bars with no taxi stand but huge parking lots. Now help me here, how is that not promoting drunk driving?

During my years as a taxicab driver I observed the Austin City Council close a taxicab stand on the street in front of a bar because the bar didn’t have room to operate their valet parking. Now, you don’t have to think too hard to come up with the idea that it might save a lot of vehicle damage if the drunks didn’t have to drive out of the parking lot but had the car brought right to the front of the bar. Maybe it’s just me, but the stupidity of that is well beyond obvious. My own opinion is that every bar everywhere should have a taxi stand or at least a loading zone directly in front of the exit. Let’s give these drunks every opportunity to do the right thing. Make it hard on them and they’ll end up driving. You either want to decrease drunk driving or you don’t. Which is it?


Let’s set the record straight.

There are a few terms that always strike a bit of discord with me. Recently, an article out of Virginia stated that a driver was shot “by two customers.” I would suggest to the writer that people who shoot taxicab drivers are not “customers.” If someone robs a bank they don’t say “customer robs bank,” they use terms like bank robber, bandit or, perhaps, gunman. It seems that these people pretending to be customers are only called customers if they are robbing a taxicab driver. When was the last time you saw an article that stated “customer robs convenience store?” Nope, never see it.

“Customers” that jump from the taxicab without paying aren’t customers, they’re thieves, so let’s just call them that. “Customers” that steal a car are car jackers or car thieves so let’s just call them that. Let’s not pretend that miscreants who enter taxicabs with foul intent are anything but criminals unless, of course, we are willing to call people who murder reporters “literary critics.”


A Godsend?

A Pennsylvania company has developed a device that jams cell phone signals from the driver’s seat after a vehicle reaches a predetermined speed. Great. The company founder bills the device as a Godsend for parents who want to prevent their kids from texting or talking on the phone while driving. Critics of the device point up the fact that drivers will no longer be able to phone in roadside emergencies. Couple that with the potential lost revenue that taxicab drivers might encounter if unable to take calls from their customers and you have a lose, lose situation in my opinion.

It’s a wonderful thing that drivers focus their attention on the road, but the cell phone is just one of many distractions that are available for the driver to engage in. I have seen drivers reading the newspaper, eating, putting on makeup, seat dancing or simply just having a conversation. What about all of these?

It is my own personal opinion that we do not require nearly enough education regarding driving, the most dangerous thing most people ever do, for new drivers nor require enough testing for existing drivers. I witness countless driver errors in the limited amount of time I drive each day which indicates to me that drivers simply don’t understand routine traffic laws. Perhaps, a little mandatory refresher course would get you a lot further than an electronic device that kills other electronic devices.


Man bites dog!

There are countless stories, day after day, of drivers being shot, stabbed, beaten, robbed or cheated in the papers across the country. Every now and then there comes a story in which the driver disarms or shoots the criminal before the deed can be done to the driver. Reports are that this has just recently occurred in Charlotte, NC.

Shooting someone isn’t a routine matter that you can chalk up to all in a day’s work. It’s a serious event. While there may be a difference of opinion about the need to carry a weapon there can be no difference of opinion on the dangers involved in driving a taxicab.

Personally, I don’t see the logic in having honest citizens die at the hands of criminals so someone will “feel” safer. But that’s just me. Whatever the outcome of the case I’m simply glad a taxicab driver didn’t have to die just because he went to work. For those out there with the Maryland mindset, “we don’t care if you die as long as you don’t carry a gun”, I can only wonder how safe you would “feel” if you were engaged in one of the top three most dangerous occupations. I can tell you from my own personal experience that being the only one in the cab without a weapon is a very depressing feeling.


—dmc

 


© 2015 TLC Magazine Online, Inc.