Streetsblog New York City

Brad, the question just what a cab passenger should do. It's also what the city could do. TLC could easily employ the affordable and mature technology available to monitor taxi speeds in real time. There is a company hire that uses GPS to keep tabs on teen drivers for their parents. Hire them. Or, record taxi speeds in black boxes and fine drivers for speeding after the fact, or... there is a ton of tech out there. What happened to red light and speed cameras for cabs? It was said the TLC had the authority to issue summonses with them without council or state approval? Any word? Point is there is so much tech out there, it's amazing how little is being put to work to corral the aggressive driving of the drivers who set the pace on the city's most crowded streets. Maybe the mayor has abandoned taxi issues after the setback on mileage standards.

Good luck reasoning with a reckless cabbie- I’ve tried it and wow was I screamed at. The only TLC standards lower than the driving ability requirements are social and customer communication skills.

There are many things the city could do, but in the end it is degraded labor. The drivers are pushed beyond reasonable limits and have perverse incentives built into aggressive driver behavior. One thing the city could do is get a labor representative on the TLC. Just one, voting or non-voting. Presently the TLC is peopled by the owner class and all their decisions seek to squeeze more and more work out of the drivers. GPS, cameras, whatever, anything but establishing a system where workers can have decent wages, hours and conditions of employment. How many of these guys have health coverage? Any?

I agree with Nic. The first step toward making cabbies more responsible is to make the system act responsibly toward them. Holding them to a higher standard would be easier if they were treated decently and justly in the first place.

It's easy - tell them "hey buddy, I'm not in a hurry, but I want to get there in one piece" and if they give any lip, I tell them it comes out of their tip.

I wish there was a uniform card you could give to cabbies that told them (in 50 languages) that you want a safe and smooth ride and are willing to give a 20% if they comply.

"Smooth ride" has a nice ring to it...

The horse & carriage was parked,the purely innocent victim of this accident.The taxi was out of control,anybody or anything in its way was the target.If that were a Parks Dept patrol horse hit,they wouldn't even care.Shame on the animal advocates,their mouths were watering for a accident of any kind,even if the horse and carriage was the victim and parked leagally.

I have, more times than I can count, been in taxis with drivers going at maniac speeds, darting and weaving like crazed animals. However, and don't jump on me for suggesting this, I'm not sure the rate of reckless driving is any higher amongst cabbies than it is for private automobile drivers. There are 13,000 taxis, driving pretty much 24 hrs a day (as opposed to maybe 3 hrs/day for private cars), and taxis are highly concentrated in the densest areas of population where small mistakes have the biggest consequences. Is it possible that the prevalence of these noticeable yellow cars in crashes makes it seem like they are more dangerous drivers, but actually they drive just as dangerously as everyone else?

It's good to single out cabbies for targeted safety improvements since they are probably the single largest driver group in the city, but what we still have on our hands is a system-wide failure to educate, restrict, enforce and punish bad driving behavior: licenses are too easy to obtain and renew, street designs often encourage speeding and reckless driving, meaningful enforcement is next to bupkis, and the penalties are rarely little more than a slap on the wrist for murdering pedestrians. The city may be making progress on street design, and Cy Vance may turn a new leaf on punishment, but licensing and enforcement are sorely lacking. Anything that makes strides in these two areas to prevent bad driving in cabbies must immediately be scaled-up to all drivers.