Posted on 07/25/2007 5:41:31 PM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
NEW YORK — A trade body representing more than 8,000 New York taxi drivers is threatening to call a strike over the city's plans to introduce satellite positioning systems in every yellow cab.
Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, told AFP Wednesday that drivers considered the proposals put forward by the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) infringed on their rights.
"Taxi drivers sometimes use the cars in their private time. Why should they tell the TLC where they are going on a Sunday with their family? This is an invasion of privacy," she said.
"We are ready to go on strike at no notice in September if the TLC doesn't cancel its plans to install a GPS in each vehicle," she added. The alliance represents some 8,400 of New York's 26,000 taxi drivers.
Under current proposals, the city's distinctive yellow cabs will from October 1 have to be equipped with the new GPS system, which also includes a monitor for passengers to follow their route and check news and weather.
The system also allows bank card payments.
According to taxi drivers' groups, the devices cost more than 5,000 dollars to install and will inform the Taxi and Limousine Commission where they are, how many trips they have taken and how much they took in fares.
Who owns the cabs and who grants the operator’s licenses?
But then I think the idea of a limited and small number of cab licenses is complete BS too.
Manhattan I could handle, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens was another story.
> According to taxi drivers’ groups, the devices cost more
> than 5,000 dollars to install and will inform the Taxi
> and Limousine Commission where they are, how many trips
> they have taken and how much they took in fares.
As well as where and when they were speeding, blowing
stop signs/traffic lights, making unauthorized
pickups and taking unauthorized short cuts;
which is likely the elephant in the room
that everyone is pretending to ignore here.
And the rest of you New Yawkers are next
(excepting Her Heinous, of course).
Crooked cabbies who tell you they don't know how to get to Mienola only after you've left Queens, so they make up a fare off the top of their heads.
NY depends on cabbies to move people. Regulating them this way is reasonable.
The cabs are usually owned by wealthy investors, who buy a medallion on the open market for $500,000, usually with bank lines of credit. They lease them to licensed cab drivers at about $180 per 12-hour shift. The cab driver keeps anything he makes over the lease and gas. If he makes less, then he loses money.
I saw where New York wants to give driver licenses to illegal aliens. Might this be a way of providing scabs if the drivers strike?
Hah! Yeah sure...who cares where they go with their families on Sunday? It is the rest of the week that we are concerned about!
This is a great way to keep an eye on foreigners who may be shuttling their jihadist buddies around in the thick of the night.
Cry about it.
I drove a yellow cab for 2 years in NYC and the truth is that a GPS is the last thing these poor SOB's have to worry about.
Its like driving a cab in a communist country complete with commissars, apparatchiks, and executions.
The danger and degradation that is inflicted on these people is astounding and most of the medallion owners leasse their cabs, they are not the drivers.
This is about not wanting to pay the 5K, not about the GPS, the union is the biggest crook of them all, shift drivers MUST pay them or they can't drive and must work 80 hours a week for 6 months before they are eligible to receive any union "benefits", of course the union doesn't pay out very much in benefits (except to the Mafia and socialist crook politicians on the take).
A sad situation.
It is kind of funny living in Texas....because I keep forgetting unions are legal...and not mob enterprises. :)
***Other than a check of a minimum safety level it isn’t the city’s business.***
Ummmmm...not really! New York City had so many complaints about the rude, drunk, and over-charging drivers that it was hurting tourist business. The last time I was in NY, several years ago, I was thrilled at the following scenario:
Long line at the airport taxi stand
Woman in charge comes down the line and asks your destination. Tells you the fare. Assigns a taxi to you. Driver can’t charge you one cent more than agreed upon.
City had passed laws about the taxi drivers.
Only bad moment the whole time I took taxis in NY was the driver who was taking sips out of a paper bag.
But I agree that the drivers shouldn’t have to tell the city where they’ve been when they aren’t working.
What say ye?
I’m with the drivers on this one - the City of NY is continually trampling the constitution. Maybe we need GPS on Bloomie.
And what's wrong with giving the passenger, in many cases a "tourist" or out of towner, the ability to see where's he's at and where he's going, among the other amenities that the technology would provide in such a large metropolitan city.
I don't see why the technology couldn't be "turned off" when off duty. But if he's carrying a fare, then it is on. I mean aren't cabs required to call in to dispatch when picking up and dropping off a fare, and providing the locations?
Not only that....they’ll get caught driving tourists in circles to up the fare.
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