[City] City Wants to Force Cabbies to Pimp Their Rides

The New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission is getting ready to implement new requirements for yellow cabs, and the members of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance are none too happy about them. This afternoon the alliance will hold a rally protesting the plan, which requires all cabs to be equipped with GPS tracking, credit card processing and television service by the end of the year. The cost of the upgrades will be the responisbility of the medallion owners. New York 1 reports.

Firstly, these are expensive costs to undertake, not to mention unnecessary, and forcing those costs upon the medallion owners, who are often the drivers themselves, is a cruel burden that, if you think about it, can only make the streets more danerous as taxi drivers make even crazier maneuvers to pick up fares and increase their income.

The biggest gripe of the of the Taxi Workers Alliance is the GPS tracking devices, which they say are an invasion of privacy (and are planning to strike if the requirements go forward). I can understand this concern, but if GPS can get a taxi driver from Manhattan to my house in Brooklyn without asking me for directions, then sorry cabby, it's worth it. Unfortunetly, the Taxi and Limousine says the GPS tracking will make it easier for passengers to recover lost property, and mention none of the benefits a GPS system could have on helping taxi drivers get around. That makes me inclined to side with the Workers Alliance and suspect the Commission of invading their privacy with a GPS system that cannot even provide directions.

The requirement to accept credit cards is an interesting one, and one which I feel opposed to. For one thing, what happened to cash? Does real money even exist anymore, or is it all just numbers and magnetic strips? My feeling is, if you want to take a cab, get some freaking money! But furthermore, the Taxi and Limousine Commission seems to believe that more people will take cabs if they accept credit cards. Personally, I think that's absurd. This is New York City; people hail cabs on the street. When you call a private cab business in other cities for what will be a $40 fare, I can understand that accepting credit cards will increase business, but in New York? The people who frequently take cabs in New York are not generally the type that would utter the phrase, "Oh no, I don't have enough cash on me; I'll just take the subway." People are not avoiding yellow cabs because they don't take credit cards. The only advantage I can perceive is for businesses reimbursing employees for taxi rides, but that is not the advantage being touted.

The proposal for television service in every cab really irks me. Can I go anywhere without having a TV shoved in my face? I can think of nothing that is more unnnecessary than a television in a taxi cab. In fact, the more I think about it, the more upset I get. When did our society decide that every car needs a TV in it? Apparently, New York City is taking advce from MTV's "Pimp My Ride," and doing their best to find any unused space to put a television. The real atrocity of it is that I suspect the real motive behind this is to generate more revenue for the city by having a specific cab channel (let me guess, some version of the Bloomberg Network?) that can sell advertisements to bombard us with.

A cab is one of the few places in New York City where, personally, I do not want to be bothered (and I know the drivers feel the same way). Maybe it is just the romantic in me, but riding a cab through the city is one of the rare moments where you can just stare out the window and absord and imagine every face, every building and everything that is the lifeline of the city. I am often amazed by the total silence that will overtake a group of people as they ride in a cab and stare out the windows. It is a profound silence, one that does not need to be filled by a television.