After American Icon Paris Hilton was caught on tape trashing gay men in the backseat of a Manhattan cab this week, it seems that New Yorkers (or at least the NY Post) have become concerned that they'll accidentally star in their own episode of Taxicab Confessions. So is there anything to be worried about?
According to the Post, there are no explicit rules prohibiting cab drivers from recording their passengers, and those who have long held the bond between cabbie and rider as sacred fear that is no longer the case. "It's like an unwritten rule, that they are going to get you to where you want to go without invasion into your life," Ivory Razor, 24, told the Post. She added that post-Paris scandal, being in a cab is "like being in a police precinct where anything you say can and will be used against you." And even lawmakers are calling for reform; City Councilman James Vacca told the Post he wanted a cab passenger advocacy group to prevent the breach of trust between driver and passenger.
Of course, not all taxi drivers feel compelled to record passengers and post their conversations online (and, after all, not all passengers are as, um, worthy to tape as Paris Hilton). "We already have the headache of traffic, we don't have time to look at what the passengers are doing, let alone record it," cab driver Mohammad Ismair told the Post. Meanwhile, Hilton has apologized for the incident, in which she told a gay friend she thought gay men were "disgusting" and "probably have AIDS," which thankfully means we can go back to not caring about her.
