Taxi drivers bothered by racy ads on top of their rides are about to have another thing to worry about. The Taxi and Limousine Commission today votes on whether or not advertisements should be allowed on taxi receipts [PDF]. We have a very strong feeling it'll pass. more ›

We don't even know where to start with this one: a crazily-eyebrowed Staten Island woman who treated her dog "better than most people treat their children" just paid $50,000 to have South Korean scientists clone him three years after his death. Oh, and she filmed it for a reality show, too. more ›

Good news for drunk taxi passengers (or just riders with bad math skills) is less good for taxi drivers. After this week the auto-suggested tips for rides under $15 in taxi cabs with VeriFone Taxi TVs will stop being $2, $3 and $4 options and instead resort to the standard 20, 25 and 30 percent defaults already available in the Creative Mobile Technologies Taxi TVs. Hurrah! more ›

Governor Cuomo has two more days to sign Mayor Bloomberg's taxi bill that would put 1,500 more yellow cabs in the city, allow livery cabs to pick up street fares almost everywhere in the city and (in thoery) generate more than $1 billion in revenue. But Cuomo has pushed back against the legislation, countering that it doesn't do enough to provide cabs for the disabled. According to the Daily News, Cuomo spent the weekend devising a plan that he finds acceptable, or the legislature can try their luck in January. "This could be 'Gov. Steamroller again steamrolling on behalf of the yellow cab medallion owners who oppose the bill," one statehouse source said. more ›

Discovery's long-running Cash Cab game show offers money to taxi fares who answer trivia questions correctly—so it is almost surprising it took so long for somebody to try the opposite. Enter Fare Play, a new webseries in which some cah-razy kids catch a cab and then torture their driver by making him answer trivia questions for tip money. And we thought you tipped drivers for their driving! more ›

A 21-year-old woman returning home to Harlem early Monday morning after drinking in Midtown says she got more than a ride from her cabbie. She says he pulled over near West 138th Street and Riverside Drive, climbed into the backseat with her and raped her. According to the Post's sources, when the woman begged him to stop he "simply snarled 'Come on, baby.'" more ›

If Mayor Bloomberg really wants his plan to make it legal for livery cabs to pick up street hails to make it out of Albany, the TLC may finally have to do something about its horrendous treatment of the handicapped. Back in June the Mayor's plan got the go-ahead and just needed Andrew Cuomo's stamp. But now it seems the Gov is witholding approval unless the additional 1,500 highly-lucrative taxi medallions that would come with the bill are all required to be handicap-accessible. more ›

Back in October those annoying TaxiTVs installed in every cab in the city started asking riders to answer a few quick survey questions and, shockingly, people answered them. According to the TLC, since the surveys started showing up, 113,000 of them have been taken—and taxi riders turn out to have a lot of dough! more ›

Cabbies really hate the outer boroughs it seems! But they also apparently have gotten quite good at spotting the TLC's enforcement agents whose job it is to ticket them when they refuse rides. So the TLC has gotten clever and hired a bunch of college kids for $10-an-hour to catch hacks who deny service. And the results are depressing—if not surprising to anyone whose ever tried to get a ride over the river. more ›

The Department of Justice may think that the lack of wheelchair accessible cabs in the city is discriminatory against the handicapped but that is just because they don't understand. In court yesterday a lawyer for the city made the jaw-dropping argument that since the TLC doesn't actually deal with riders, it just licenses the cabs who deal with them, it has no obligation to serve the handicapped. No, really! "Your position is [that] no one has any responsibility, and it would be perfectly legal if there was not a single accessible taxi cab in New York City?" Judge George B. Daniels reportedly clarified yesterday. "You understand how extreme that sounds?" more ›

Okay, so, not everything is totally copacetic about the design of Nissan's Taxi of Tomorrow. But if you missed the chance to check out the prototype in person yesterday, you probably missed one feature that hasn't gotten nearly as much publicity as it should: the magical smell. Seriously. more ›

The Taxi of Tomorrow hasn't necessarily gotten a lot of love from Gothamist once the Karsan Kab was taken out of the running but what can you do? Come 2013, Nissan's NV200 will be flooding the city's streets (occasionally even with wheelchair access), so now is a good a time as any to get to know the old girl, eh? And for that, Nissan has an interactive model on display for one week, starting tomorrow, on the pedestrian plaza across from the Flatiron building. more ›

The new surveys that greet you on Taxi TV aren't the only changes that have recently been introduced to the annoying backseat boob tubes. Four years after the TVs started being standard in cabs, The Times is reporting that the two major Taxi TV vendors have recently, and quietly, started to lower the initial volume on them. And that's not all! more ›

New Yorkers may not like those Taxi TVs in the back of every cab, but the backseat boob tubes are here to stay—so at least the TLC is finally going to make some use out of them? Yesterday the Taxi and Limousine Commission began adding mini-surveys to the mix of GPS, local and news and annoying videos that greet fares when they enter one of the city's 13,237 cabs. Is your driver talking on his cellphone? Are you riding a cab for business or pleasure? How much money do you make? Is this TV broken and impossible to turn off? The TLC wants to know! more ›

Stop and frisks and cycling citations are at record highs, but the NYPD isn't doing a whole lot about the noise that raises the collective blood pressure of city residents. Incessant honking, which totally makes traffic jams disappear instantly, is a $350 fine in most of the city. And though we've never seen a cabbie not impatiently honk at a car going the speed limit, the TLC is trying to change that behavior by sending them text messages reminding them of the fine. Not surprisingly, the cabbies are not letting go of their horns quietly. more ›

We've said it before and we'll say it again: The humble NYC Taxi medallion continues to be the best investment a person could have made way back when. How good? A man who bought two medallions for $80,000 apiece in the 1980s just sold them for $1 million dollars each. By the numbers, over the past 30 years the taxi medallion has outperformed the Dow Jones, gold, oil and the American house. No wonder some cab companies are so opposed to Bloomberg creating a new tier of medallions for the outer boroughs! more ›

You think it is hard getting a cab? Try catching one while in a wheelchair. It isn't easy, and despite the TLC making a big fuss about their "Taxi of the Tomorrow" competition, it isn't going to get better anytime soon. Of the three finalists for the title, the TLC managed to choose the two models that aren't handicap-accessible—a fact that the U.S. Attorney's office reiterated yesterday when it surprisingly came out in support of a lawsuit that argues the city's cabs violate the Americans With Disabilities Act. The U.S. Attorney has been investigating the issue since May. more ›

Wednesday's Hair Summit with Donald Trump behind him, GOP presidential hopeful Rick Perry is back in New York City today to meet with 100 Hispanic business leaders in Inwood, including the head of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers Fernando Mateo. "It's something that I kept pretty quiet, because I just wanted it to happen," Mateo tells 1010 WINS, "I don't know how 1010 WINS got a hold of the information, but you did, and I'm not going to deny it." Was it the bejazzled "Rick Perry" tube top? Mateo must be STOKED that they both support racial profiling. Maybe they'll get mani/pedis? more ›

TLC's hit documentary on ridiculously bad parenting, Toddlers and Tiaras, took the leap from the small screen to Fashion Week yesterday. Former Real Housewives of New York person Kelly Bensimon hosted the “Cowgirl Riders Debutante Fashion Show” for a bunch of too-innocent-to-understand-how-terrible-their-parents-are six-year-olds in the basement of the Bryant Park Hotel. The headliner of the show was Eden Wood, the breakout star of the TLC freakshow who left the program to pursue other equally-sad opportunities. Watch some totally age-appropriate video of her slapping her butt at the event below! more ›

A Staten Island woman whose home is filled with hundreds of creepily realistic dolls is the subject of a new TLC show, called, appropriately, My Collection Obsession. And boy howdy, does Obsession look like it'll put My Strange Addition to shame! more ›

We can empathize with a man who possesses an infamous name, but at least were never forced to carry a copy of The House at Pooh Corner to prove our identity. 50-year-old Deli worker Jose Delacruz has been arrested four times—and nearly deported by the FBI—because he bears the same name and date of birth as Jose "El Toro" Delacruz, a Dominican drug dealer who was recently extradited to his home country. The non-drug dealing Delacruz now carries a certified document stating that he is in fact not the '80s gangster El Toro. "No matter what I do, they always think I'm him," Delacruz tells the Daily News. "It's a terrible way to live. I'm scared all the time." more ›