Closing Bell: No Cabbies to Brooklyn
Last week we covered the four-year long plan to close Manhattan bound lanes on the Brooklyn Bridge during from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. on weekdays, from midnight to 7 a.m. on Saturdays and from midnight to 9 a.m Sundays. Looks like Brooklynian commenters were pretty peeved with how taxi drivers have been refusing to…
Last week we covered the four-year long plan to close Manhattan bound lanes on the Brooklyn Bridge during from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. on weekdays, from midnight to 7 a.m. on Saturdays and from midnight to 9 a.m Sundays. Looks like Brooklynian commenters were pretty peeved with how taxi drivers have been refusing to take Brooklyners home from Manhattan due to construction. “After 2 cabs refusing, a driver finally took us but was angry the whole time and explained that all cabs will start refusing. And then Saturday night around 2:30am, my boyfriend and I tried to get a cab home… 4 in a row refused us,” writes a poster. Another points out the Manhattan Bridge has lanes reversed when the Brooklyn Bridge is closed, so hopefully late night traffic problems will not be as bad as anticipated.
Photo by gimmeahug
I would love to get one of these crappy cabbies in court- I would take off from work for a whole week if I had to testify against these guys! Next time it happens I’m going to video tape it while I’m in the cab- I will record him telling me that he wont drive to Brooklyn and that he doesn’t care if I call 311. I will record his picture and license and all relative material and I will record his cab and cab number while he’s driving away. I would love to see the look on the guys face when he sees all that evidence before him in court- Could he face perjury charges if he says it wasn’t him and then my video tape prooves it?
BTW if you are interested in seeing what the traffic looks like this shows most of the areas DOT cameras..
http://nyctmc.org/multiview2.php?listcam=175,183,223,135,138,134,204
and traffic right now on the BB east bound and the Manhattan Bridge west bound is lite…
I hope it’s an offense to let someone else use your hack number…. seems like that defense would (hopefully) just end up with another.
Just to clarify what smeyer mentioned earlier about penalties for service refusal, they are appropriately serious. The penalty upon conviction for a first offense is a range fine of $200-$350; a second offense within 24 months is $350-$500 and a possible 30-day suspension. Three offenses within 36 months equals mandatory license revocation. These penalties are an effective deterrent….provided that people take the few moments necessary to call 311 or visit http://www.nyc.gov to file a complaint. As Commissioner Yassky points out, it is now even more convenient to report this or any violation that requires a hearing, thanks to the innovation of participation in the consumer process via telephone!
LOL I bet there are a number of people who don’t believe it.
🙂
smeyer is (as always) correct — the telephone rules are new. He is also correct that drivers sometimes claim that they were not actually driving the cab at the time of the refusal — but since they are required to input their “hack number” into the computer, this means claiming that someone else used their hack number — and then it is up to the judge to decide who to believe.
BTW if the cab driver pleads as a defense that his/her identity is an issue,(that he or she wasn’t there it was someone else) then a personal appearance may be required….
the telephonic hearing rules are relatively new.
This may have occurred before the rule was effective.
David —
This sounds fine… but I reported a refusal of service about a year and a half ago (Taxi refusing to drive me Brooklyn to Brooklyn) because he wanted a return-to-Manhattan fare. Unsurprisingly, he clicked on the “off duty” light when I told him I was calling 311.
ANYWAY — I received the letter from T&LC and it said that I was REQUIRED to ATTEND a hearing for it to move forward. This doesn’t sound like what you say above? Or this is definitely NOT clear in the letter I received.
I couldn’t take time off work to appear, so I didn’t pursue this.