The Life of a Cabbie
I've been meaning to collect all my New York cabbie lore in an entry for some time now, so here goes...
* What makes a car a taxi? Answer: a specific license from the city to operate as a taxi. The license takes the form of a medallion bolted to the taxi's hood. Taxis also have to be painted yellow -- it's actually the law.
* The medallion is the main cost of owning and operating a taxi. There are only 13,000 available medallions, and whenever one is returned to the city (by, say, a retiring cab driver), it appears to be sold at auction. Note that this page says the minimum bid is $189,000. There was a news item last summer when a taxi medallion went for $600,000.
* Since all 13,000 medallions are in use, that means there are 13,000 taxis in New York City. Very few cabbies can afford a medallion, as you might expect, so most of them work for a company that owns medallions. These companies appear to keep the cars working around the clock: when a cabbie comes off a shift, he turns the car over to the next cabbie. (Presumably the cars have to be drydocked at times for maintenance, but anyway, this explains why so many of them look so ragged.)
* Incredibly, cabbies work 12-hour shifts -- 5 to 5 -- so that means there are around 26,000 cab drivers. (I was told that by a cabbie, but you can easily verify these figures online.)
* Yes, the shifts really do change at 5 AM and 5 PM every day. Not surprisingly, these are the hardest times of day to get a cab.
* When I get cabbies talking -- well, that's not hard to do; rather, I should say, when I feel like listening to cabbies -- they always complain bitterly about the corruption of taxi garages. Evidently, the average cabbie has to bribe his dispatcher in order to get a fair shake when it comes to the allotment of cars and shifts. Women cabbies have told me that sexual harrassment is widespread as well.
* As if this weren't bad enough, the garage puts more obstacles in the way of a cabbie's livelihood. First: cabbies who don't own their own cabs are essentially renting them from the garages -- they have to pay a large sum up front (in addition to the bribes) for the privilege of driving the company's car for 12 hours. It's up to them to recoup the cost and/or make a profit by getting as many fares during their shift as they can.
* Second: cabbies have to return their cars to the garage by 5 AM (or 5 PM), or else be penalized a fee by the garage for every minute that they're late. However, as long as a cabbie's on-duty light is illuminated, he's legally required to stop for anyone hailing him and take them wherever they want to go. But if it's 4:30 PM, and he's in midtown Manhattan, and his garage is in the Bronx, but his new fare wants to go to LaGuardia, he's screwed. (I have been that fare before and gotten an earful.)
* That's why most cabbies turn on their off-duty light around the changing of the guard. Of course, if they go off duty too soon, they could lose some potential fares. Fortunately for them, they're still allowed to pick up fares when their light is off. In fact, there's nothing forbidding them from asking a potential fare where he wants to go before they let him into the car -- that way they can pick and choose a few last fares, who happen to be going in the same direction as their garage, or just over a short distance.
* They are, however, legally required to write down the times they went off and on duty -- they usually use a log sheet on a clipboard. Cops can pull them over if they have the off-duty light on and check the log to make sure they're following the rules; if they're not, they have to pay a fine.
* By the way, I once wrote an entry on how to hail a New York City taxi.
* Probably because cabbies work such long shifts, and are going to need to stop driving to take meals and restroom breaks, there are various "taxi stands" throughout the city. These are just stretches of parallel-parking spaces along a street that only cabs are allowed to use. Special signs clearly demarcate the limits of the "stands". (When I read the word "stand", I picture a booth at a county fair. And when I read signs that say "NO STANDING", I can't help thinking initially that it refers to pedestrians and not motorists.)
* Although I pity the plight of cabbies and always tip them well, there are still one or two things they do that annoy me. According to "the taxi rider's bill of rights", which is posted in most cabs, all cabbies are supposed to have EZ Pass (loosely, a device on the dash that automatically pays tolls at bridges and tunnels at a discounted rate) and to charge you the discounted toll -- not the full toll. But all cabbies, as far as I can tell, charge you the full toll, because you have no way of knowing what exactly the discounted rate is (it's not posted on the tollgates the way the full toll is).
* By doing that, they're probably only cheating you out of a buck at most. What's more irksome still is when a cabbie tells you that his EZ Pass is broken and he has no cash and you have to give him cash right now to pay a toll.
* The taxis are finally getting credit card readers, which I think is annoying the cabbies -- they don't get as much of their income in non-traceable cash. So it's always irritating when a cabbie claims to you that his credit card reader doesn't work -- you never know if it's true.
* Incidentally, another of the items on "the taxi rider's bill of rights" is the right to tell the cabbie what route to take to your destination, including which bridges and tunnels to use. I make use of this all the time -- I live in lower Midtown and prefer to use the Queens-Midtown Tunnel to get to LaGuardia, and have not been impressed by the times cabbies took me all the way up to the Triborough and back down again.
* You're also theoretically allowed to tell the cabbie to turn down or turn off his radio, though I've never made use of this, even when I've really wanted to. Seems to me it'll only annoy them and create a tense atmosphere.
* What makes a car a taxi? Answer: a specific license from the city to operate as a taxi. The license takes the form of a medallion bolted to the taxi's hood. Taxis also have to be painted yellow -- it's actually the law.
* The medallion is the main cost of owning and operating a taxi. There are only 13,000 available medallions, and whenever one is returned to the city (by, say, a retiring cab driver), it appears to be sold at auction. Note that this page says the minimum bid is $189,000. There was a news item last summer when a taxi medallion went for $600,000.
* Since all 13,000 medallions are in use, that means there are 13,000 taxis in New York City. Very few cabbies can afford a medallion, as you might expect, so most of them work for a company that owns medallions. These companies appear to keep the cars working around the clock: when a cabbie comes off a shift, he turns the car over to the next cabbie. (Presumably the cars have to be drydocked at times for maintenance, but anyway, this explains why so many of them look so ragged.)
* Incredibly, cabbies work 12-hour shifts -- 5 to 5 -- so that means there are around 26,000 cab drivers. (I was told that by a cabbie, but you can easily verify these figures online.)
* Yes, the shifts really do change at 5 AM and 5 PM every day. Not surprisingly, these are the hardest times of day to get a cab.
* When I get cabbies talking -- well, that's not hard to do; rather, I should say, when I feel like listening to cabbies -- they always complain bitterly about the corruption of taxi garages. Evidently, the average cabbie has to bribe his dispatcher in order to get a fair shake when it comes to the allotment of cars and shifts. Women cabbies have told me that sexual harrassment is widespread as well.
* As if this weren't bad enough, the garage puts more obstacles in the way of a cabbie's livelihood. First: cabbies who don't own their own cabs are essentially renting them from the garages -- they have to pay a large sum up front (in addition to the bribes) for the privilege of driving the company's car for 12 hours. It's up to them to recoup the cost and/or make a profit by getting as many fares during their shift as they can.
* Second: cabbies have to return their cars to the garage by 5 AM (or 5 PM), or else be penalized a fee by the garage for every minute that they're late. However, as long as a cabbie's on-duty light is illuminated, he's legally required to stop for anyone hailing him and take them wherever they want to go. But if it's 4:30 PM, and he's in midtown Manhattan, and his garage is in the Bronx, but his new fare wants to go to LaGuardia, he's screwed. (I have been that fare before and gotten an earful.)
* That's why most cabbies turn on their off-duty light around the changing of the guard. Of course, if they go off duty too soon, they could lose some potential fares. Fortunately for them, they're still allowed to pick up fares when their light is off. In fact, there's nothing forbidding them from asking a potential fare where he wants to go before they let him into the car -- that way they can pick and choose a few last fares, who happen to be going in the same direction as their garage, or just over a short distance.
* They are, however, legally required to write down the times they went off and on duty -- they usually use a log sheet on a clipboard. Cops can pull them over if they have the off-duty light on and check the log to make sure they're following the rules; if they're not, they have to pay a fine.
* By the way, I once wrote an entry on how to hail a New York City taxi.
* Probably because cabbies work such long shifts, and are going to need to stop driving to take meals and restroom breaks, there are various "taxi stands" throughout the city. These are just stretches of parallel-parking spaces along a street that only cabs are allowed to use. Special signs clearly demarcate the limits of the "stands". (When I read the word "stand", I picture a booth at a county fair. And when I read signs that say "NO STANDING", I can't help thinking initially that it refers to pedestrians and not motorists.)
* Although I pity the plight of cabbies and always tip them well, there are still one or two things they do that annoy me. According to "the taxi rider's bill of rights", which is posted in most cabs, all cabbies are supposed to have EZ Pass (loosely, a device on the dash that automatically pays tolls at bridges and tunnels at a discounted rate) and to charge you the discounted toll -- not the full toll. But all cabbies, as far as I can tell, charge you the full toll, because you have no way of knowing what exactly the discounted rate is (it's not posted on the tollgates the way the full toll is).
* By doing that, they're probably only cheating you out of a buck at most. What's more irksome still is when a cabbie tells you that his EZ Pass is broken and he has no cash and you have to give him cash right now to pay a toll.
* The taxis are finally getting credit card readers, which I think is annoying the cabbies -- they don't get as much of their income in non-traceable cash. So it's always irritating when a cabbie claims to you that his credit card reader doesn't work -- you never know if it's true.
* Incidentally, another of the items on "the taxi rider's bill of rights" is the right to tell the cabbie what route to take to your destination, including which bridges and tunnels to use. I make use of this all the time -- I live in lower Midtown and prefer to use the Queens-Midtown Tunnel to get to LaGuardia, and have not been impressed by the times cabbies took me all the way up to the Triborough and back down again.
* You're also theoretically allowed to tell the cabbie to turn down or turn off his radio, though I've never made use of this, even when I've really wanted to. Seems to me it'll only annoy them and create a tense atmosphere.