Comments on: Another View of Yesterday’s Cab Crash

By: jwb

jwb — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:17:02 +0000

Stowed in the trunk? Sure. Aboard?

By: Cap'n Transit

Cap'n Transit — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 05:05:31 +0000

Jwb, spacious enough for a wheelchair?

By: jwb

jwb — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 02:38:40 +0000

Grinner: what a strange article. Clearly the MPG standard could easily have been met with a car like the Toyota Camry Hybrid, instances of which have entered taxi service in San Francisco. Great fuel economy, spacious, safe.

By: Ian Turner

Ian Turner — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 22:05:34 +0000

Zgori,

Raising cab fares won’t give more cash to drivers; it will just raise the value (thus cost) of taxi medallions, enriching current medallion owners and giving not a cent extra to drivers.

The right way to improve the safety of taxis is to adjust the fare structure to encourage safe driving, and to step up automated enforcement, which should be (more) possible to pass by the state. Right now the fare structure encourages taxis to speed and they drive accordingly.

By: Boris

Boris — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 22:04:17 +0000

So long as the NYPD remains a we-don’t-care more-than-useless organization, the kind of driving that we have in New York will continue. To say the least, speeding and reckless driving are not enforced on New York streets.

Either we put the NYPD to work, and give them a commission for issuing speeding tickets, or we send them all home (without pay).

By: Steven Crowell

Steven Crowell — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 20:55:33 +0000

Why are there never details about injuries from impact with partition edges and protrusions? These reports are scanter than imaginable.

By: gecko

gecko — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 16:37:15 +0000

What’s scary is that those driving yellow taxi cabs are possibly better drivers than those driving black cars and even the city’s non commercial drivers since the insurance rates get exhorbitant after they have received moving violations and caused accidents.

They do travel all the time including when tired and distracted (on cell phones, making change, logging trips, looking for riders, etc.).

By: geralyn

geralyn — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 14:43:56 +0000

the two hybrid cabs found each other…

By: zgori

zgori — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:58:20 +0000

@ getting paid less than you should is not an excuse for doing the fundamental part of your job- in this case driving- poorly and recklessly.

Absolutely. Also burger flippers shouldn’t spit in your food. And customer service reps shouldn’t hang up on you. But that’s the culture.

By: Marty Barfowitz

Marty Barfowitz — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 20:42:08 +0000

Mayor Bloomberg: Do you care that this is regularly happening in your city?

Ray Kelly: Do you care?

City Council Liliputians: Do you care?

T.L.C. and cab industry: Oh, hell, I’m not even going to ask. I know you don’t care.

Robert Morgenthau: Are you still even breathing?

New York Times: You don’t care. This was just an “accident,” right?

Who the f*ck is in charge here? Who CARES?

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:01:55 +0000

Say what you want about how low or high a cabbie’s wage is, getting paid less than you should is not an excuse for doing the fundamental part of your job- in this case driving- poorly and recklessly.

“If they were only paid more” is not a useful argument.

(That would just buy them more minutes on the cell phones anyway)

By: PaulCJr

PaulCJr — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:51:06 +0000

Pay more? Right. I know a lot of us here would be willing to flip the cost because we understand the benefits of it. But you tell that to Americans, they’ll have a cow. I hear New Yorkers all the time complain about the high price of cab fares and how they think they’re being taken. I alway tell my friends when I hear them complain about the cost of the cab, this is nothing. In San Francisco I pay way more. But we want something for nothing in this country. I still can’t understand why that is.

By: zgori

zgori — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:07:48 +0000

The only way to get better cab drivers here is to raise the fare so the drivers (not the fleet owners) can earn decent money. Then you’ll get less turnover, more experienced drivers and more competition for licenses (which will allow for raised licensing standards). Too cheap for that? We’ll just have to settle for third-world drivers working 12 hour shifts under tremendous pressure to turn over the meters.

London cabdrivers aren’t only good drivers and navigators, they’re also courteous to customers, pedestrians and other drivers. They also charge about twice what we pay.

By: Shemp

Shemp — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:00:57 +0000

The most harrowing account of 3rd world driving I have ever read is in Joe Simpson’s “This Game of Ghosts” (he is the author of “Touching the Void” and subject of the film of same title) – the chapter on being driven from Islamabad up to the Himalayas.

By: Larry Littlefield

Larry Littlefield — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:00:28 +0000

Cab drivers are paid far less, relative to other careers, than they were 30 years ago.

They used to be salaried employees — now they are self-employed, no-benefits independent contractors who have to rent the cab and medallian for the day and take the risk of not making enough to cover it. One reason they barrel to the curb the way similarly free market incentivized bike messangers roar the wrong way up the street.

They used to be natives, now they are mostly immigrants as a result of falling wages.

The flipside is that taxi fares are probably much cheaper relative to transit fares than they were 30 years ago, despite increasing surcharges. Kind of like airfares. You get what you pay for.

By: vnm

vnm — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:42:57 +0000

Cabbies in London have to have The Knowledge. Cabbies here need to know how to count.

By: Boris

Boris — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:39:29 +0000

The ironic thing is, if this was a rare event like a crane collapse you’d have politicians falling all over themselves in trying to reform driving laws.

By: Grinner

Grinner — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:32:15 +0000

Mr. Walker:

Obviously, hybrid taxis spontaneously flip over, as was reported in the Streetsblog headlines on 21 October 2008 (http://www.yellowcabnyc.com/nyc-taxi/hybrid-taxis-causing-injury-damage-york-city-streets).

My question is “which cab blew the red light?”

Bitterness aside, i very much hope that those injured pull through.

By: JK Rowling

JK Rowling — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:25:01 +0000

An “AP squib?” The AP employs people non-magical people that were born into wizarding families?

By: Velocentric

Velocentric — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:07:16 +0000

Bet they weren’t wearing helmets.