'It is Getting to be Like the Bad Old Days When Taxis Wouldn't go to Brooklyn'...
“Can’t find a cab to take you to Brooklyn? Join the club. The city is seeing a big rise in complaints about scofflaw cabdrivers who refuse rides based on the passenger’s requested destination, officials said on Thursday. The Taxi and Limousine Commission said it received 2,341 reports of refusals in the last half of 2010,…
i recently had this problem – trying to get a cab from the east village to clinton hill. it was during the beginnings of one of the snow storms – the one that started with hail. the weather made very few customers so a LOT of cabs were going around without fares that night. i was with my cousin and her 2 year old son.
the first cab i hailed, stopped and rolled down the window to ask where. i had put my hand on the door handle to open the door while saying brooklyn. he said no, that he was off duty, and began to drive off, but i was still holding on to the door. i slid/was dragged about 100 feet on the icy street before overcoming the shock and letting go.
finally got a cab driver who took pity on us cuz we had a 2 year old and drove us back. he explained to me in this weather, many drivers did not want brooklyn fares because it’d be hard to get one coming back in this weather. but considering the slim pickings in even manhattan that night, that rationale did not hold much water for me.
After having to argue with him, the cab driver literally whined the entire time back to Brooklyn- and I lived in Bk Hgts at the time. Just over the bridge. I threw the fare at him, no tip and slammed the door so hard it nearly fell of the hinges.
“I don’t understand the problem. Get in, tell them where to go. If they argue, tell them to STFU and don’t give them a tip.”
And how do you make them drive the Taxi if they refuse to take you?
1. Get in car and tell them where you are going
2. If they refuse, get out and leave the door wide open.
3. Walk away.
Childish, but sometimes I’ve done that to make myself feel better.
Whenever I see someone go to the cabby’s window and say, ” Please kind sir will you take me to…” I want to shake them. Get in, close the door and give them a destination. if they do the whole roll down the window and ask, always say Union Square, then get in a tell them where you are really going.
Let me clarify, when I take cars within Brooklyn, 98% of the time I either call a service or hail a service car on the street. Once in a blue moon, when I’m in the Heights or Park Slope late at night for social occasions, I’ve attempted to get a yellow cab to go home, only because there haven’t been any car service cars trolling the streets. The yellow cab track record in those instances hasn’t been good.
I’ve been taking car service cars for the last 25 years. The gypsy cars in Brooklyn are sooooo much better than they used to be. Most of them are now Lincoln town cars, back in the old days, they were any land yacht with 4 wheels, a ripped up back seat and really nastly smelling air freshener things hanging from the rear view mirror.
If they refuse to take you, jot down the medallion number and tell them you’ll report them to TLC.
never have a problem getting one to take me home- even from the taxi stand in front of my office where they’d get much better fares. Also notics a lot more of them around in brooklyn in the AM with their lights on, and have to confess to taking them once in a while into manhattan when i’m late for work.
It would never occur to me to try to get a yellow cab in brooklyn to take me somewhere else in brooklyn. Just stare hard at any towncar driving by, and odds are they will honk gently and ask if you need a ride and it will be cheaper than a yellow.
yeah – car service for intra-brooklyn travel. cheaper, and you don’t have to give directions (handy if you’re wasted)