Survey Says NYC Taxi Riders Are Mostly Loaded, Local, Lazy

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!

42 percent of riders say that they earn $100,000 or more a year with another 19 percent pulling in $50,000 or more (16 percent wouldn't answer). And yet? 42 percent of riders think that taxis are too expensive. As for other things riders don't like about cabs? Well, 28 percent aren't fans of aggressive driving, while 17 percent would really rather ride without those Taxi TV's asking them stupid survey questions.

And things get ugly when it comes to catching a cab, and not just to outer boroughs. A surprisingly high 43 percent of the cab riders—62 percent of whom are New Yorkers, 22 percent of whom are tourists, 9 percent suburbanites visiting and 7 percent commuters—really are confused by the lights on the tops of cabs. Huh! Maybe the TLC should figure that out.

Other interesting results? A majority of the survey's were taken by people alone in the cab (40 percent), cabs are pretty clean (only 14 percent of those surveyed said their cab was not clean), cabbies are pretty good about not using their horn with fares in the back (only 22 percent said their driver had used it) and more than half of riders (54 percent) would love to be able to pay for their cabs with their phone.

Want more? People don't really have as much trouble communicating with drivers as certain cliches would have you believe (79 percent said their communication with them was "good" or "great") and they really, really love being able to pay for cabs with credit cards (58 percent). Finally, 47 percent of riders take cabs to save time, but the second biggest reason for riding according those surveyed is because it was too late in the day for other types of transit. Seriously, how can NYC call itself the city that never sleeps when all the bike lanes close at dusk, the buses turn into pumpkins at midnight, and the subway system is crawling with Gremlins after dark.