IN
NOVEMBER, 1999, movie star Danny Glover
complained that he and other African
Americans were discriminated against in
hailing a cab. Glover's complaint was old
news, but the city's Taxi & Limousine
Commission took the opportunity to
intensify its routine assault on the
rights of the city's 41,000, largely
immigrant, yellow cab drivers.
Last week, Manhattan Borough President
Virginia Fields issued her own report,
"Confronting Discrimination in the
Taxi Industry." This product of
nine-months' work is rife with error,
avoids the main point it pretends to
address, and disregards the serious civil
rights abuses committed against taxi
drivers.
Data collected in the several recent
New York Police Department and TLC sting
operations against cabbies indicates that
between 90 and 99 percent of all cabbies
stop for whomever hails them. Certainly in
a perfect world the figure would be 100
percent. But in a perfect world,
hardworking cabbies would not have to
worry about being beaten on a fare, robbed
or murdered.
The facts may be little solace to the
black men in particular who are passed by.
But talk to the drivers-including black
and Hispanic drivers-and they will tell
you with one voice: The problem is not
racism, but economics and safety.
Driving a taxi is an economically
marginal existence. Most cabbies rent
their cabs for $100 per shift or more.
Thus they must collect that much in fares
before earning a dime for their families.
Though most yellow cab drivers live in
the outer boroughs, they are loathe to
take long trips out there for reasons that
have nothing to do with race. It is
because they generally have to drive back
to Manhattan-where most of their business
is-empty, earning nothing. Over the years
since the TLC rules were first written,
the TLC has licensed thousands of livery
cabs to serve the outer boroughs.
Some cabbies fear for their safety,
which is hardly irrational given that they
carry wads of cash and there was a spate
of livery cab murders just last year. All
cab drivers have been beaten on fares, and
there is nothing the TLC or anyone else
does to compensate them for their loss.
The TLC is an agency that combines the
efficiency of the Lindsay administration
with the charm of Giuliani's. The idea
that the TLC might revise its rules to
reflect life is unfathomable to anyone who
knows how that bureaucracy works.
Instead, the TLC periodically steps up
enforcement. In its mindless
"crackdown" on supposedly racist
cabbies, the TLC has suspended the
licenses of hundreds of cabbies on a bare
allegation from a TLC inspector without
any sort of hearing. It is strictly
verdict first, trial later.
When a driver does get a
hearing-usually months later- the judge
deciding his case owes his or her job to
the agency prosecuting the offense. Of
course, the cabbies lose not just most of
the time, but every time. Not even
Brezhnev got 100 percent of the vote.
The borough president's report nods to
the economic realities, and then assumes
that racism is at fault at any rate. Thus
Fields says drivers should have more
training, including
"sensitivity" training. Then she
advocates still more enforcement and says
it should be easier to make a complaint
against a driver. Currently complaints can
be phoned in. What could be easier than
that? I have followed the refusal cases as
closely as anyone, and the evidence-even
where a driver is found guilty-rarely
suggests racial bias. Often an undercover
agent will enter a cab and demand to go to
a distant address. If the cabbie asks for
help with directions, the agent refuses,
tells the driver he should know that
already and demands he get going. If the
driver asks another question, the agent
interprets the question as a tacit refusal
and confiscates the driver's cab and his
hack license, his means of livelihood.
Hard to believe, but it happens almost
every day.
What does Fields say about this issue?
Surprisingly little. She says drivers
deserve a prompt hearing. But a federal
judge has already decided that the
Constitution requires a hearing prior to
suspension-not after.Yet the TLC refuses.
Borough President Fields has come late
to the debate and has arrived
empty-handed. One of her "38
recommendations" is that the map in
the back of taxicabs be changed. The map
offends, Fields argues, because it only
extends to 86th Street in Manhattan, which
is a subtle suggestion to drivers that
they need not travel uptown.
In fact, there are two maps, one of the
city's main business district, Manhattan
south of 86th Street, and another of the
entire city. How is it possible for the
borough president, after publishing her
nine-month study, not to know this? The
answer is, as Dr. Johnson once said,
"Ignorance, madam, pure
ignorance."
Dan
Ackman is a lawyer, journalist and
screenwriter in New York, and a
staff
editor at Forbes.com.
