Results tagged “taxi”

Aha! After a rocky start with accepting credit card payments (the striking... the threatening... the chasing... the punching), taxi drivers had conceded last year that plastic payments were helping them out. Now, two years after the program was launched, the NY Times further confirms that the credit (and debit) card payment system is mostly a success.

Bad news for the cabbie who kicked the embracing gay couple to the curb on Monday night — Mayor Bloomberg has gotten involved! The NY Post reports that he declared everyone has the right to ride in a cab (duh), and added, "I thought the taxi driver's behavior -- if it is as reported -- was a disgrace. Somebody's orientation has absolutely nothing to do with whether they can ride a taxi. That kind of attitude doesn't fit with what this city's become."

It's a game of he said/he said with this story of a gay couple being kicked to the curb by a cabbie. Paul Bruno and his partner were allegedly embracing in Medhat Mohamed's cab Monday night in the East Village, when they say the driver tossed them, declaring: "Hugging is not allowed in here!"

A cabbie is being called out for kicking a gay couple to the curb after they dared embrace in his car. The G-rated PDA caused Medhat Mohamed to allegedly toss the two out just two blocks after he had picked them up at 13th Street and First Avenue around 10:20 p.m. Monday night.

Yesterday a 50-cent surcharge was tacked on to taxi fares as part of the state's MTA bailout, starting a cab ride with a $3 base fee... and no one is happy about it.

Last night around 9 p.m. two cabs crashed into scaffolding at Broadway and East 8th Street. A witness on the scene told WCBS "that one of the cabs tried to overtake the other before the two collided and careened across Broadway at the corner of E. 8th Street, jumping the curb and coming to rest on the sidewalk under the scaffolding." (There's some video of the aftermath after the jump.)

Just after 9 p.m. tonight reports came over the newswire of a scaffolding accident on East 8th Street and Broadway. This is a photo of the scene, where two taxis are trapped under the scaffolding. Reportedly there were six victims being transported to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

If you hate waiting for a cab at the airport, then imagine how the cab drivers feel, waiting hours at a time in a holding pen before being allowed to pick up passengers at a terminal. Surely there is some way to match up the waiting passenger with the waiting taxi. No? Anyway, the Daily News reports that some drivers were paying their way to the front of the line. All whilst passengers just stood there like suckers, not bribing a soul in their own line.

The NY Post reports that a baby decided to make things dramatic for her mother and playwright father: While in the backseat of a taxi, "Addison Proctor, 36, and his wife, Sally Schuiling, 35, were rushing from their Upper West Side apartment to NYU Medical Center when the baby's head popped out. With one more push, Alice Adeline Proctor entered the world." Aww—here's a picture of the happy family; Schulling said, "I scooped her up and put her on my chest, and she was breathing right away."

After yesterday's announcement that the TLC will be cracking down on cellphone using cabbies, people on both sides of the plastic partition are not happy. Many drivers insist they use their cellphones responsibly and should not be punished. "My wife is home with cancer," one driver tells the New York Times, "If my cellphone rings, I’m going to pick it up." The new rules would forbid drivers from using any device capable of non-emergency phone calls, even if they were to pull over. One driver tells the Daily News "I understand that we can't talk on the phone while we're driving, but to say we can't pull over to take an emergency call...It's like a form of slavery."

It's already illegal for cab drivers to use cell phones while driving—even hands-free—but that law's even more scoffed at than the city's futile jaywalking prohibition! So now the Taxi and Limousine Commission is taking on the seemingly impossible task of separating hacks from their phones, by proposing heavy new punishments for gabby cabbies.

Today NY1 anchor John Schiumo stole the Twitter spotlight from Pat Kiernan with a harrowing tale of taxi cab body odor. The good news is he lived to Tweet the tale, which is complete with burning eyes and a stinky receipt. As Seinfeld once said, "There should be a B.O. squad that patrols the city like a 'Smell Gestapo.' To sniff 'em out, strip 'em down, and wash them with a big, soapy brush..." [via Animal]

Because there were, miraculously, no injuries, that professionally-shot video of a street fight between a pedicab driver and a cabbie was an instant classic—especially that part where the pedicab driver rides off on the sidewalk after throwing a trashcan at his adversary (and missing). But Mayor Bloomberg was not amused, and told reporters yesterday that the traffic-stopping fisticuffs were "totally inappropriate."

A Fox 5 cameraman happened to be shooting footage near the Ed Sullivan Theater yesterday for a segment on taxi medallions when an angry brawl exploded between a pedicab driver and a cabbie. It starts when the pedicab driver, fed up with the hack honking his horn behind him, tosses a cup of coffee at the cab's passenger-side window. You gonna take that cabbie? Not in New York! Check it out:

While some New Yorkers have been cutting back on taxi fares during the recession, a new study shows the value of taxi medallion is stronger than ever. The value of an average medallion continues to climb in tougher times, with a medallion now being worth $760,000 a nearly 180% increase from where it was at less than a decade ago—outperforming every asset other than gold.

Unlicensed cab drivers are charging tourists $120 a pop for a ride from the airports to Manhattan, and Inside Edition is mad as hell about it. In one of their priceless hidden camera exposés, airing tonight at 6 p.m., the show's muckrakers put their lives on the line to show you what you hopefully already knew: shady individuals are preying on people at the airport.

FDNY officials have confirmed that no one was injured in yesterday morning's spectacular taxi fire, but they have yet to determine the inferno's cause. According to the Post, a passenger was in the cab when it ignited around 9:30 a.m., while stopped at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 53rd Street. Apparently, the cabby pulled over at the light because his meter had stopped running, and both escaped the 2007 Ford Crown Victoria as it burst into flames.

         

[UPDATE BELOW] We're getting reports that a taxi cab has exploded at 53rd and 7th Avenue. A tipster tells us: "The gas tank exploded... It was just in the right lane on Seventh Avenue at the light at 53rd Street. I was on Broadway and saw white smoke at first, then huge flames and the entire couple of blocks filled with black smoke. FDNY put it out but I think it took them a while to get there cause it was scorched. I don't think there was anyone inside, at least I hope not."

Yesterday we mentioned that there was a car crash—which included an overturned taxi car—at 24th Street and 7th Avenue. Streetsblog has two photographs of the scene and it looks like the crash involved two cabs. Three people were injured, one of them critically, in the 1:45 p.m. incident, but there are no other details about what happened. Well, we can imagine.

On August 14, a cab driver struck and killed 8-year-old Axel Pablo who was crossing 112th Street near Lexington Avenue. While some witnesses said the driver was speeding and talking on his cellphone, police investigators reportedly found no evidence of Shaiful Alam being on his phone and did not charge him. Now it turns out that Alam has "an astounding 11 points on his license from July 2007 to July 2008," according to the Post, which adds, "Under state law, a driver with 11 points or more in an 18-month period gets an automatic license suspension. State officials could not immediately determine why that did not happen to Alam."

     

Three people were injured when a cab driver somehow drove his SUV into one of the West 72nd Street subway entrances—after jumping the curb and driving through the wrought iron gates— yesterday afternoon. The injured included the driver, his passenger and a pedestrian. The police say no charges are going to be filed in the incident, but one witness told NY1, "The driver was sitting on the floor and he was asked if his breaks failed. And he said yes. But there was no way his [brakes] failed."

Being behind the wheel of a New York City cab can likely supply you with plenty of fodder for a screenplay, especially when you're driving away from a job on Wall Street. Nearly a decade ago 45-year-old Mike Puerto quit his job trading derivatives and got his taxi license. He worked on a script for a Wall Street drama and, according to the NY Post, taped a sign behind his seat that read: "If you are a TV producer or executive, I have a pilot ready to go into production." Well, he's now got himself a producer, director of photography, agent and actors on the ready for his TV project, titled "M&A" (mergers and acquisitions). While networks expressed interest, a solid deal hasn't come through, however; so Puerto found advertisers and his plan is to buy time on Spike TV. The entourage he assembled all work for free (for now), and are convinced that Puerto is on his way to success. Paul Jarrett of Rosetta Films told the paper, "None of these people have been paid anything. It's just that Mike is such a captivating person that we keep coming back to see if he will pull all the pieces together and actually get this thing made." The sign in the cab now has this addendum: "will shortly go into production."

There are reports coming in that a car crashed into one of the subway "headhouses" (the buildings that house the subway entrances) at West 72nd Street and Broadway. We're not sure if it's the new northern building or the older one on the south, but apparently three people were injured. According to initial reports, there are "two red tags" and "one yellow tag"—according to triage terminology, red tag is "immediate care / life-threatening" and yellow tag is "urgent care / can delay up to one hour." And the car may have been a taxi. We'll keep updating with what we learn—unclear whether this will affect the commute.

Things not to leave behind in a taxi: $500,000, 184-year-old violins on loan. The NY Post reports on one musical prodigy, Hahn-Bin, who did just that yesterday after a trip from Lincoln Center to Chinatown. He called 311, who "put him in touch with NYPD Detective Ming Lee and Taxi and Limousine Commission officials Azam Kifaieh and Sam Shady. Hahn-Bin then waited—for 15 tense hours—as the NYPD and TLC scoured GPS records to figure out which cab driver dropped him off" (though CityRoom reports it only took one hour to actually track down the instrument). The driver was contacted while off-duty at his home in New Jersey, and told them he had indeed found the instrument, which Hahn-Bin has since been reunited with. TLC Commissioner Matthew Daus declared musicians to be the most forgetful fares, saying, "There are enough instruments left in taxis to start a small orchestra." Official protocol for cabbies who find an item in their cab is to take it to the nearest police precinct "without delay."

There are conflicting reports about the cause of a taxi-on-pedestrian accident at 112th Street and Lexington Avenue in East Harlem yesterday afternoon, but this much is certain: 8-year-old Axel Pablo is dead, and the driver of the cab, Akim Saiful Alam, was released without charges. Witnesses and police tell the Daily News that Alam, turning left from Lex onto 112th, slammed into Pablo as he stopped to pick up his mother's cell phone while crossing the street. The impact knocked Pablo out of his shoes.

You'll be forgiven for not realizing that it's actually illegal for NYC cab drivers to use cell phones—even hands-free—because they all do it. This morning the Times takes a look at chatty cabbies as part of an ongoing series of articles called "Driven to Distraction." Surprisingly, a reporter assigned to ride in cabs as research found that only about one third of his 20 taxi rides featured a driver using his or her cell phone. Almost all of them terminated the call when asked—except for one hack who pulled over and grumbled about a stalled engine.

An Israeli Army major, on vacation in New York with her family, was injured in the head when a giant rock smashed the windshield of the cab she was riding in on the FDR Tuesday night. The rock, allegedly dropped by two teens from an overpass near 71st Street, sent shards of glass into Gilat Raz's face above her left eye. Her 11-year-old daughter, Raz's sister and nephew were in the back and were unharmed. Raz, 41, tells the Daily News, "I've been driving in the West Bank, I've been in Gaza. I never imagined that New York would be where I'd get hit by a rock. It was scary how much I bled. The children were hysterical."

A tipster sent us this photo of the aftermath of an accident yesterday on the Upper West Side, in which a cab jumped the curb on West 86th Street and struck four pedestrians. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured; paramedics took two men and a street vendor to St. Luke's with minor injuries, and a fourth pedestrian refused medical attention. Cabbie Hafiz Faheem tells the Daily News that a beer truck clipped him as he turned off Amsterdam Avenue: "He came behind me so fast, and he hit me. He was not paying attention or he was doing something." It's not yet clear what brand of beer was involved, or if any of the precious cargo was damaged in the incident.

Remember that crazy cabbie who, despite a number of assault charges and a DWI arrest, continued driving his cab with a suspended probationary license? Well, apparently he's still at large, but the TLC is now going after 10 cab companies that leased taxis to the hack, one Ramez Akladious (pictured), from February 2008 through January 6th, 2009. His hit list of offenses include slashing a passenger's face, driving drunk, punching another driver in the face, and a racist assault on a black female passenger, who just so happened to work for the TLC. Officials tell the Post they're "sure" he no longer drives a taxi, but nobody's seen him since the beginning of the year. The cab companies are due in court next month and face hefty fines and possible suspensions for leasing taxis to Akladious when his license was suspended.

For insight into how the forthcoming taxi-share changes might actually play out, look no further than Yorkville, where Manhattan's only officially-sanctioned taxi stand whisks perfect strangers to Wall Street every morning, for $6 a pop. Some women have voiced concerns about predatory cab Casanovas using the shared backseat to get fresh, but they might be reassured by the customs that have evolved out of two decades of Yorkville cab share culture. As rider Glenn Caldwell tells the Times, "Everybody seems to know the rules." Namely: No talking. Not to each other, not on a cell phone, not to yourself. Of course, the militant silence could also be attributed to uptight Upper East Side WASP reticence, so we'll have to see how this goes once gabby shoppers start piling into cabs by Herald Square. But TLC commissioner Matthew Daus promises that shared taxis participating in the pilot program will have "a code of conduct" posted inside, discouraging New Yorkers who might, in a moment of weakness, be inclined to let their guards down and actually meet someone new. (After all, that's what the Internet is for.)