New York, NY – Mayor Michael Bloomberg is calling for steeper penalties for taxicab drivers who refuse rides based on the passenger’s destination.
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New York City’s Taxi and Limousine Commission said reported incidences of service refusal have been on the rise. Between July and December of 2009, passengers reported 1,963 incidences, while complaints spiked over 38 percent during the last half of 2010 to 2,341 reported service refusals.
Yassky and Mayor Bloomberg are pushing stiffer penalties for cabbies who refuse customers based on destination.
The proposed penalties would be a $500 fine for the first offense, and $750 and a 30-day license suspension for a second offense within two years. Currently, a service refusal carries a $200 to $350 fine for a first offense, and a $350 to $500 fine – and possible 30-day suspension – for a second offense. Third offenses within a three-year period would remain the same – mandatory TLC license revocation.
The TLC uses a “secret shopper” program to curb the practice, but passenger complaints are the catalyst for most summonses.
Read more at WCBS NY
It’s about time!! As a frequent taxi user, I get skipped over all the time. They see a black hat and they just speed past. Other times they stop and just flatly say “I’m no going to Brooklyn”.
The obvious flaw though, you can’t prove anything. I got refused dozens of times, and I never complained. I once had a cabbie start driving while I was still leaning into his car. I couldn’t get his number cuz he sped away.
One time, in 1970, in Brooklyn, when I got into a cab, and I told the driver my destination in East New York, he started cursing and told me that “he didn’t like the neighborhood”. I told him that I didn’t like the neighborhood either, but I had to work there. Other times at JFK, drivers would state “I’m not going to Brooklyn. In early 2002, I asked a taxi driver to take me to Ground Zero. He deliberately let me off quite a distance from that site. Also, he charged me a round trip toll for the Queens Midtown Tunnel, even though he only drove me through that tunnel one time. On the way back, the driver had a door which locked, and prevented me from leaving the cab, until I paid the fare. I don’t like being kept a prisoner in the cab. What if the driver became disabled? I think that such devices are illegal. I avoided using NYC taxicabs for over 23 years. A word of advice, if you can possibly avoid using NYC cabs, do so! I think that when the taxis were regulated by the NYCPD, and not by the Taxi & Limousine Commission, the penalties were better enforced.
Most of the time when the cabbies refuse service, it is for their own safety. I would do the same if I was doing that job. Being asked by a dark-skinned individual to drive him to a neighborhood where the cops don’t want to go by themselves – thank you, no.
I reported a yellow cab driver years ago who wouldn’t take me from Manhattan to Brooklyn. He didn’t show up at the hearing, so I won by default and he had to pay a fine.