GPS Log Analysis Uncovers Millions In NYC Taxi Overcharges

Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that New York City's Taxi and Limousine Commission is using GPS data collected in every cab to review millions of trips in New York City over the past 26 months and has discovered a huge number in which out-of-city rates, twice the rate charged for rides in the five boroughs, were improperly charged. The drivers' scheme, the commission says, involved 1.8 million rides and cost passengers an average of $4 to $5 extra per trip when drivers flipped switches on their meters that kicked in the higher rates, costing New York City riders a total of $8.3 million. Cab drivers are supposed to charge the higher rate only when they cross the border between New York City and Nassau or Westchester. 'We have not seen anything quite this pervasive,' said Matthew W. Daus, the taxi and limousine commissioner. 'It's very disturbing.' The taxi industry vigorously challenged the city's findings, saying it was unimaginable that such a pervasive problem could be the result of deliberate fraud. The commission says that 75% out of the city's 48,000 drivers had applied the higher rate at least once. Officials hope to roll out a short-term fix in two or three weeks in which an alert will appear on the backseat monitor when a cabbie activates the out-of-town rate."

Comments

Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Rivalz]

Bah forget about bankers we need to bail out the cab driver industry.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one don't want to ever be tracked by GPS or any other technology for any reason. Maybe shady cab drivers and, more importantly, the big corporations that employ them will be unlikely allies in the politics of never being tracked like cattle. I'm sure they hire lobbyists and legally bribe congresscritters like every other sizable corporation. Guess every cloud DOES have a silver lining.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[WrongSizeGlass]

I for one don't want to ever be tracked by GPS or any other technology for any reason. Maybe shady cab drivers and, more importantly, the big corporations that employ them will be unlikely allies in the politics of never being tracked like cattle. I'm sure they hire lobbyists and legally bribe congresscritters like every other sizable corporation. Guess every cloud DOES have a silver lining.

The vast majority of taxis in NYC are from small shops or independents. And most taxi drivers could never get hired by larger corporations ... they are simply a unique animal.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Maxo-Texas]

This is a tricky point for me.

As our information collection gets better, hidden income sources get eliminated.
Then the question becomes- does the "honest" rate really need to be raised?

For example- truck drivers used to be expected to make 8 stops and were paid 8x dollars.

Once GPS came in, suddenly they are being expected to make 11 stops (because the gps showed they were sitting around for 20 minutes) and work 100% while on. But the pay is still 8x dollars.

I wonder if there is a correlation between how much the out of town rate was activated and how slow a day the driver was having?

Our drivers in Houston are certainly not retiring wealthy (unlike some of our police sergeants). Cab driving should provide a decent living and with government intervention in rates, that can be tricky at times.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[magsol]

I had always assumed the cab industry in New York was so saturated with competition and so decentralized that price fixing like this wouldn't be possible; everyone would have to charge essentially the same rates or risk being driven (literally and figuratively) out of business.

Apparently, it can happen anywhere.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[nomadic]

I had always assumed the cab industry in New York was so saturated with competition and so decentralized that price fixing like this wouldn't be possible; everyone would have to charge essentially the same rates or risk being driven (literally and figuratively) out of business.

Only yellow medallion cabs are allowed to pick up passengers; the price is supposed to be the same for any cab, and you don't know the total cost until you reach your destination (unless you're headed to an airport where there's a flat fee).

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[causality]

For example- truck drivers used to be expected to make 8 stops and were paid 8x dollars.

Once GPS came in, suddenly they are being expected to make 11 stops (because the gps showed they were sitting around for 20 minutes) and work 100% while on. But the pay is still 8x dollars.

There's an easy solution to that which involves neither GPS tracking nor micromanagement.

Pay the drivers on a per-delivery basis, allowing for things like distance driven and amount or weight of cargo to be variables that determine this rate. Then the drivers can decide how they wish to use that 20 minutes. If a driver can make 11 deliveries in X time, then he gets paid about 28% more than a driver who makes 8 deliveries in X time. Now they have an incentive to be more productive that doesn't require tagging them like cattle and any expenses associated with that. The recipients of the deliveries have no incentive to help the drivers cheat this system, since that would mean failing to receive their items.

I wonder if there is a correlation between how much the out of town rate was activated and how slow a day the driver was having?

Our drivers in Houston are certainly not retiring wealthy (unlike some of our police sergeants). Cab driving should provide a decent living and with government intervention in rates, that can be tricky at times.

The most robust solution to this is presented in the summary. Have some unambiguous indicator that allows the paying passenger to see whether the out-of-town rate is being applied. It could be as simple as a bright LED with a label saying "When light is on, out-of-town rates are being applied" that is tied to the driver's rate switch. This would guard against both deliberate deception and honest mistakes and would represent full disclosure to the customer.

The idea of using GPS to monitor everyone's whereabouts and track their activities is both unnecessary and needlessly complex. Simpler, more robust solutions can be implemented that come with none of the privacy concerns. Not only is a centralized GPS database a tempting target for attackers who would compromise it, it's also a single point of failure if such a compromise does occur. That's undesirable in a system used to keep people honest. It'd be far more difficult to obtain physical access to every cab in NYC and disable the physical indicator of which rate is being applied.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[timmarhy]

no, it's called effiency. just because drivers don't get to sit around for 20 mins extra per day it doesn't equate to a pay rise. if we didn't constantly get more efficent in this manner inflation would spiral out of control as everything got more expensive everytime you got people to work smarter.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[clintp]

Pay the drivers on a per-delivery basis, allowing for things like distance driven and amount or weight of cargo to be variables that determine this rate. Then the drivers can decide how they wish to use that 20 minutes. If a driver can make 11 deliveries in X time, then he gets paid about 28% more than a driver who makes 8 deliveries in X time.

With that you get drivers rushing through their deliveries or trying to squeeze in an extra one or two runs per day. That's great and all and everyone wins, right? Until a driver that's taking drugs for alertness has a heart attack or one that doesn't falls asleep at the wheel. Cargo gets manhandled, customers get lousy service from cranky and rushed drivers, and the equipment takes a lot of abuse. The DEA starts sniffing around the employee lockers and trucks, insurance companies, workman's comp. adjusters, and lawsuit happy attorneys circle nearby.

The other suggestions (the LED one) I'm in favor of. Let the customer know he's (possibly) being cheated, and they can work it out from there.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Gorobei]

That makes no sense. All NYC cabs are yellow and charge the same rates - you don't the choice to either hail an honest one or a dishonest one. It's about the most uncompetitive market there is.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Vellmont]

Once GPS came in, suddenly they are being expected to make 11 stops (because the gps showed they were sitting around for 20 minutes) and work 100% while on. But the pay is still 8x dollars.

What that leads to is drivers that can't afford to stop to take a piss. So what do they do? Piss in a plastic jug and throw it out the window. There's more to life than money.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[causality]

Pay the drivers on a per-delivery basis, allowing for things like distance driven and amount or weight of cargo to be variables that determine this rate. Then the drivers can decide how they wish to use that 20 minutes. If a driver can make 11 deliveries in X time, then he gets paid about 28% more than a driver who makes 8 deliveries in X time.

With that you get drivers rushing through their deliveries or trying to squeeze in an extra one or two runs per day. That's great and all and everyone wins, right? Until a driver that's taking drugs for alertness has a heart attack or one that doesn't falls asleep at the wheel. Cargo gets manhandled, customers get lousy service from cranky and rushed drivers, and the equipment takes a lot of abuse. The DEA starts sniffing around the employee lockers and trucks, insurance companies, workman's comp. adjusters, and lawsuit happy attorneys circle nearby.

The other suggestions (the LED one) I'm in favor of. Let the customer know he's (possibly) being cheated, and they can work it out from there.

It seems to me you could avoid that by defining a maximum safe/realistic number of deliveries to be made during any one timespan. You could derive such a figure by averaging the number of deliveries made by the top 5-10% highest-performing drivers who have had no at-fault accidents and no customer complaints about quality. Then add a margin to that of around 25% or so and you get your maximum permitted number. This would be easy enough for the company to control since the drivers have no cargo that it did not give them and this is the case whether they are employees or contractors.

I still don't see where this is such a complex problem that GPS tracking is the only possible solution, or even a good solution.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a tricky point for me.

As our information collection gets better, hidden income sources get eliminated.
Then the question becomes- does the "honest" rate really need to be raised?

let me hold your wallet for you while you ponder.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Achromatic1978]

There's an easy solution to that which involves neither GPS tracking nor micromanagement. Pay the drivers on a per-delivery basis, allowing for things like distance driven and amount or weight of cargo to be variables that determine this rate. Then the drivers can decide how they wish to use that 20 minutes. If a driver can make 11 deliveries in X time, then he gets paid about 28% more than a driver who makes 8 deliveries in X time. Now they have an incentive to be more productive that doesn't require tagging them like cattle and any expenses associated with that. The recipients of the deliveries have no incentive to help the drivers cheat this system, since that would mean failing to receive their items.

Not so easy. You think your solution hasn't been tried before / exist now? All it leads to is drivers taking uppers to stay awake and drive hours past when they should be taking a break, as well as encouraging them to speed.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[causality]

There's an easy solution to that which involves neither GPS tracking nor micromanagement. Pay the drivers on a per-delivery basis, allowing for things like distance driven and amount or weight of cargo to be variables that determine this rate. Then the drivers can decide how they wish to use that 20 minutes. If a driver can make 11 deliveries in X time, then he gets paid about 28% more than a driver who makes 8 deliveries in X time. Now they have an incentive to be more productive that doesn't require tagging them like cattle and any expenses associated with that. The recipients of the deliveries have no incentive to help the drivers cheat this system, since that would mean failing to receive their items.

Not so easy. You think your solution hasn't been tried before / exist now? All it leads to is drivers taking uppers to stay awake and drive hours past when they should be taking a break, as well as encouraging them to speed.

It's conducive to the discussion if, before posting, you note that someone else has already raised this very same objection (32 minutes before you posted this) and that I have already addressed it with a proposed solution. The already-stated objection and my response to it are in the very same thread.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Cyberax]

Yup. That's how taxi works here in Kiev (Ukraine).

When I order a taxi over the phone, I'm immediately told what the price is going to be, so you pay exactly this sum to the driver (+tips).

And now it's the driver's problem to chose the shortest and fastest route. If we get stuck in a jam - I'm not paying more.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't even come close to making sense, yet it superficially sounds good. You must be in management.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[zippthorne]

So, the problem is drivers working themselves to death and putting their fellow vehicles at risk, and the solution is perfect enforcement of a "no loafing" policy to work the drivers like dogs...

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Anonymous Coward]

Cab driving should not be a good job. Unskilled labor anyone could do.

Your post reeks of wealth redistribution

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[The End Of Days]

Once we let you in, the precedent was set.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[bschorr]

It even pervades information services. I wonder how many people get busted telling their boss or client they're working on Project A because they were on Twitter or Facebook talking about doing something totally different.

Accountability, for better or worse, is rising to a whole new level due to voluntary and involuntary location and presence services.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[sjames]

That is, until the stress associated with being spied on all the time makes the drivers surly and accident prone. You'll notice that executives never get spied on to make sure they're REALLY making business deals while golfing.

Human beings are not 100% efficient. Try to make them so and something will eventually fail spectacularly.

The world is a better place when everyone gets a little slack.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[dangitman]

And now it's the driver's problem to chose the shortest and fastest route. If we get stuck in a jam - I'm not paying more.

That's hardly fair to the driver, as being stuck in a traffic jam costs them more - and there are plenty of unforeseen events, such as detours for construction work or accidents.

Drivers ripping off customers is not acceptable, but tilting it the other way to take money from the pockets of drivers is not the solution either.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Cyberax]

"That's hardly fair to the driver, as being stuck in a traffic jam costs them more - and there are plenty of unforeseen events, such as detours for construction work or accidents."

Unforeseen events tend to average out. So taxi company just adds a couple of percents to the price to compensate for it.

And most certainly, drivers do make money.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[wanax]

Indeed, NYC created a taxi monopoly in 1937, partially as a response to poorly maintained vehicles and their attendant dangers. The problem is, that the law which did so hasn't been revised since, we've only had several hundred new medallions issued (as far as I know given for hybrid cabs) since 1937, and are stuck with the same ~13k cabs. Since this has made the medallions extremely valuable ($500k+), there is obviously a significant lobbying interest to prevent the sale of new medallions. While I'm not a huge fan of gypsy cabs (which, for example, often don't have functioning seat belts) the idea that the current population is served by the same number of cabs as was available in 1937 is absurd.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[PaladinAlpha]

Where do you get the baseline data? How do you control for delivery complexity? How do you determine pay? What do you 'expect' your drivers to handle? How do you handle owner-ops vs. leased trucks? Accidents? Training? Maintenance? What about drivers that perform significantly below the norm -- you're paying them fairly by your own standards, but you're incurring the overhead of maintaining their paperwork. How do you handle long deliveries vs. short deliveries? Hazardous cargo? Insurance? Benefits?

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[quantaman]

This is a tricky point for me.

As our information collection gets better, hidden income sources get eliminated.
Then the question becomes- does the "honest" rate really need to be raised?

Yes.

If the "honest" rate is too low, and the only way to make money is by being dishonest, than only the dishonest will work in that field. That's a situation I'd rather discourage than encourage.

For example- truck drivers used to be expected to make 8 stops and were paid 8x dollars.

Once GPS came in, suddenly they are being expected to make 11 stops (because the gps showed they were sitting around for 20 minutes) and work 100% while on. But the pay is still 8x dollars.

I wonder if there is a correlation between how much the out of town rate was activated and how slow a day the driver was having?

Our drivers in Houston are certainly not retiring wealthy (unlike some of our police sergeants). Cab driving should provide a decent living and with government intervention in rates, that can be tricky at times.

If not idling reduces their job satisfaction that much than fewer people will drive trucks, and eventually they'll have to raise wages to attract more drivers.

If not idling didn't actually reduce their job satisfaction... Well then what's the problem? More work is getting done and no one is any less happy, it's good for everyone!

Note the cab drivers aren't idiots, if they can't make a living at the given rates than they simply won't drive cabs.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[frisket]

The problem isn't so much the rate as the fact that yellow cab drivers don't appear to know their way around the city, and can't speak any recognisable form of English. I would have more sympathy with them if they behaved more professionally.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[easyTree]

It'd be far more difficult to obtain physical access to every cab in NYC and disable the physical indicator of which rate is being applied.

...unless you had access to the cabs, allowing you to install another switch that, when flipped, disabled the LED.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[IICV]

The world is a better place when everyone gets a little slack.

Spoken like a true disciple of Bob.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[causality]

Where do you get the baseline data? How do you control for delivery complexity? How do you determine pay? What do you 'expect' your drivers to handle? How do you handle owner-ops vs. leased trucks? Accidents? Training? Maintenance? What about drivers that perform significantly below the norm -- you're paying them fairly by your own standards, but you're incurring the overhead of maintaining their paperwork. How do you handle long deliveries vs. short deliveries? Hazardous cargo? Insurance? Benefits?

You mention things like pay, performance expectations of drivers, accidents, training, etc. A GPS system would have the same issues to solve. Basline data is easy; the company already has records of previous deliveries that have been made. It would not be hard to use data-mining techniques on that data to come up with reasonable baselines. Many industries use projections that are far more complex than this.

My intention was not to contain the perfect, absolutely objection-proof system that addresses all possible aspects of truck driving in a Slashdot post (believe it or not). Nor was it my intention to provide a one-time, final ultimate solution for problems that really need to be managed as part of the day-to-day operation of the business, like driver training or pay and benefits. My intention was to demonstrate that there are solutions (with their potential downsides) in addition to the solution of using GPS (with its potential downsides).

Remember that the specific problem being discussed was the productivity of truck drivers, both a need to have a minimum level and the dangers of pushing them too hard. GPS tracking was a proposed solution to that specific problem (not all possible business concerns) and I pointed out that it's not the only solution available for that specific problem, full-stop. If you wish to side-track the discussion because you think numerous irrelevant objections make those objections valid, or constitutes useful debate, perhaps someone else is willing to indulge you.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[e4g4]

I have no doubt that cabbies flip the switch when travelling from say, Manhattan to Brooklyn or on any long-ish ride where the ride back to the place where cabbies make the vast majority of their money (Manhattan) is unlikely to be paid for by a fare (late at night, e.g.).

This certainly explains some previously inexplicable fairly large ($5-$7) variations in cab fare that I've been surprised by since I moved to Brooklyn.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[slashtivus]

Once again Trailer Park Boys were ahead of their time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNkiO20AlQE High Definition Piss Jugs

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[digitalchinky]

Some people like driving, but to define driving as unskilled labor anyone could do? That's absurd.

It took me a bunch of years smashing up old farm vehicles as a kid along with a few formal lessons before I was competent enough to sit the driving test. At 18 years old I was legally allowed to drive, though I'd honestly say it took me many months of solid driving before I felt like the car wasn't controlling me. It would still be about another 7 years before the insurance companies trusted me enough as a driver to lower my rates.

Flying, another 'unskilled' driving job right? Point A to Point B on a map. Most people go solo somewhere between 7 and 20 hours - about the same as in a car really. Piece of cake? Hardly. I've been at it for a bit over 20 years and I'm still learning with every single flight.

Next time you jump in a taxi, think about how much this underpaid and unskilled driver truly cares about your life. He (or she) doesn't care about you, they want you out of the taxi as quickly as possible so they can get the next person out as quickly as possible too, and the next, and the next - hopefully at the end of the month they make enough to pay the bills.

So, do tell, what exactly ~should~ be a good job in your opinion. Or does the world require a cattle class of people who are less fortunate or just plain old stupid, all so you can delude yourself in to feeling better about who or whatever it is you think you are.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[timeOday]

That's hardly fair to the driver, as being stuck in a traffic jam costs them more - and there are plenty of unforeseen events, such as detours for construction work or accidents.

How is pushing the costs of unforeseen events onto the rider any more fair? I certainly wouldn't expect UPS to charge me more for sending a package depending on whether their driver hit traffic.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[dangitman]

Unforeseen events tend to average out. So taxi company just adds a couple of percents to the price to compensate for it.

But they don't average out for a particular journey.

Unforeseen events are accounted for in the current system, whether it's unexpected congestion, or unexpected lack of congestion. Customers pay for their actual trip.

With the fixed-price system, some are overcharged and others are undercharged. And this does not average out nicely. Drivers who have shifts covering peak congestion periods would get screwed, while those rostered for less-congested hours would make extra profits.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[dangitman]

How is pushing the costs of unforeseen events onto the rider any more fair?

Because they are paying for the additional cost of providing the service. Just like any other service.

Furthermore, traffic jams are hardly unforeseen events - they are much more likely at particular hours of the day.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Profane MuthaFucka]

I'm really getting annoyed with the Republicans posting comments like this one all over the place. Once upon a time, it wasn't cool to be an open racist. But then came the Reagan Revolution and the Contract on America, and suddenly everyone's pulling grandpa's sheets off the shelf.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Maxo-Texas]

Do you know how hard it is to get to be a cab driver in some cities?

Do you want to be in a cab with a driver who has no clue about the streets and is just kinda wandering around trying to make it to your destination?

I mean- forget the extra money for a second- do you want to get to the airport, or your meeting, or the broadway play 30 minutes late?

As an FYI, these "cheating" cab drivers are making about $50k.

A driver make around 50,000 per year depending on his shift which is 8 to 12 hours.

Sources: http://411newyork.org/guide/2008/03/30/new-york-taxi-cab-driver-salary/

Meanwhile
http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/02/05/2009-02-05_nyc_so_costly_you_need_to_earn_six_figur.html
N.Y.C. so costly you need to earn six figures to make middle class
A New Yorker would have to make $123,322 a year to have the same standard of living as someone making $50,000 in Houston.
In Manhattan, a $60,000 salary is equivalent to someone making $26,092 in Atlanta.

---

And we are going to begrudge them a few bucks in fares? $26,092 is just above the federal poverty level. (cost of living is so bad in new york that they are starting to calculate poverty levels differently because "poverty level" is actually in the low $30k's in NYC).

---

The arrogance and sense of entitlement of the wealthy and my fellow boomers really makes me irritated sometimes.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[PaladinAlpha]

There is something of a dissonance, here. You berated someone farther down about bringing up a (valid) objection, retorting with a reference to this sub-thread and how you had answered his objection. Further objections would appear to also be unwelcome, here. There are several fundamental problems with the solution you proposed, and I fail to see how they are 'irrelevant' to its discussion.

Business is not science. A "theoretical" solution has a value of zero if it cannot be implemented. That's something that's easy to lose sight of when in a relatively abstract field like comp. sci. or even just 9-to-5 programming. If GPS allows them to track the drivers and still use the same payroll infrastructure that has been in use for decades, then it's going to take a really strong contender to unseat that idea.

Frankly, I think they're entitled to GPS truck shipments. But assuming that they aren't, paying per delivery only has three possible outcomes:

1) The "maximum" payout is too high, and you have dangerous working conditions.
2) The "maximum" payout is too low, either because of per-stop rates (in which case no one wants to work for you) or because of too-low maximum stops (in which case you are being grossly inefficient)
3) You stay between the two, in which case your drivers are making roughly what they make now, except for the ones that aren't doing the proper volume -- which could have been handled through management to begin with, without restructuring the entire payroll/accounting/tax scale of the entire company.

It is frustrating to see someone present an argument in an initially reasonable light and then dissolve into petulance when resistance is encountered. If you are not prepared to defend your ideas, then they will never be your ideas.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[by (1706743)]

But they don't average out for a particular journey.

I'm pretty sure that "average" implied "multiple journeys" in this context...

With the fixed-price system, some are overcharged and others are undercharged. And this does not average out nicely. Drivers who have shifts covering peak congestion periods would get screwed, while those rostered for less-congested hours would make extra profits.

Some waiters/waitresses work on Tuesday night, some on Friday night -- guess who makes more in tips? It seems to me that it comes down to what you're paying for; are you paying to sit in a car, or are you paying to get from A to B? Whichever it is, you should charge accordingly.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Z00L00K]

And the rate - keep it same per hour/distance driven regardless of where the cab goes.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[jcr]

That's hardly fair to the driver, as being stuck in a traffic jam costs them more

Perhaps the cabbie has the experience (and the incentive) to take this kind of contingency into account when quoting the price.

-jcr

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[nacturation]

That's hardly fair to the driver, as being stuck in a traffic jam costs them more - and there are plenty of unforeseen events, such as detours for construction work or accidents.

You don't think this gets factored into the price? Regular price from A to B might be $10. However, the taxi company sees that there is heavy construction along the route, not to mention it's rush hour and the main route tends to get jammed. So the quoted price to the customer might be $17 to accomodate. Now it's up to the prospective customer whether that's worth it or if they should call a different taxi company and hope for a better rate.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[that this is not und]

Your frame of reference is a little warped, dude.

But I do agree. I remember Slashdot comments before Reagan and the Contract For America. Back then everybody here was just so much more congenial.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[clarkkent09]

The point is that everybody can drive, hence everybody (more or less) can be a taxi driver. You might as well say it took you couple of years to learn how to walk, even more years to learn to speak, write etc etc. The only reason taxi drivers earn as much as they do is that they are protected by the government (usually city), which limits the number of licenses available. If anybody who wanted to be a taxi driver was given a license, the amount taxi drivers would make would be much less, exactly because it is such a common skill. If you think that to allow that would be cruel to taxi drivers, think about how cruel it is to prevent the millions of unemployed people by law from making some extra money driving people from A to B, which they could easily do.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[dangitman]

I'm pretty sure that "average" implied "multiple journeys" in this context...

I'm sure it did, but how is that relevant? Why should the one person that travels infrequently suffer for the rest of the users?

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[dangitman]

Perhaps the cabbie has the experience (and the incentive) to take this kind of contingency into account when quoting the price.

In the situation cited, the taxi company quotes a fixed-rate price, and the cabbie doesn't have any say in the matter.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[dangitman]

You don't think this gets factored into the price? Regular price from A to B might be $10. However, the taxi company sees that there is heavy construction along the route, not to mention it's rush hour and the main route tends to get jammed. So the quoted price to the customer might be $17 to accomodate.

That's not apparent from the post I was replying to, which claims a fixed rate.

Either way, regardless of how the taxi company figures it, doesn't mean it is fair on the taxi driver.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[phoenix321]

As a European, I remember that it was the Republicans that fought a war to free the slaves, while the Democrats were largely in favor of keeping "those brownskins" as personal property.

How do you re-frame this?

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[phoenix321]

So, the problem is WORKERS working themselves to death and putting their fellow WORKERS at risk, and the solution is perfect enforcement of a "no loafing" policy to work the WORKERS like dogs...

Fixed that for you.

How do workers in other industries get their pay? By time worked? By units produced? By TPS reports filed?

Either way, no one gets paid for sitting around, except government officials, NGOs and politically correct undertakings of all kinds.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[phoenix321]

I take it that you've never had a real job in the real economy then. You're not only being spied upon by email, phone and some by video camera, but your boss can always come around the corner monitoring you, your performance, your outfit and even the number of flairs on your clothing.

A taxi driver has none of that: the boss is several hours of traffic jam away, there are no coworkers present to exert social pressure to work like anyone else and what the driver wears, or listens to is (almost) completely free to choose, even when the customer is present.

That work environment must sound like Dreamland Utopia to some cubicle farmers or burger flippers. It does to me, so I don't cut them their slack since they have enough already.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[phoenix321]

A regular race to the bottom.

Truck drivers are subject to a whole lot of pressure from their employers, since the employers themselves are under pressure in that race.

Unless some of the drivers stand up for their values and just takes a stop to take a pee, the "average number of stops" is decreasing further, meaning the pay cut for stopping is getting worse.

It's always easy to put the blame on "large institutions", "greedy capitalists", "the society" but much harder to offer constructive solutions. Everything I've heard to date includes government pressure, government laws, government this and government that.

Truckers that discard plastic pee bottles are greedy themselves, or they would accept the small pay cut for doing it properly. But in this case, it's easy enough: at the next gas station, stop the truck, get out of the cab, get to the loo, do your thing, get back in the cab and ride on. 2 minutes maximum. 5 minutes when having a quick cup of coffee afterwards. How much is the pay cut for that? And why don't people stand up for that and just do what is right?

Most truck drivers must know a ton of violations of laws from their employers, from riding double-shifts sometimes to having been issued and forced to a vehicle damaged enough to be technically unfit to even stand at a public parking lot. Wrongfully terminated employees tend to rat out their employers.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[phoenix321]

Ok, do you begrudge
- the clerk at McDonalds
- the clerk at the gas station
- your bank teller
- your car mechanic

when he overcharges you by a few percent every time you purchase or order something?

A published and official price list is legally binding. If the legally and contractually agreed pay is too low, then I can't help it. No one has enough money and most people would like to earn substantially more. Some even have personal issues that make living more costly, having more children than most or having an expensive hobby or a medical condition. But that's not how the market works. I cannot give charity bonus for all transactions I do, since I cannot do the same. A society where personal need somehow translates into enforceable markup on prices will suddenly experience a huge increase in needs. If children mean more pay, we will have human rabbits. If medical conditions mean more pay, people will suddenly have attests for all kinds of medical conditions. - and as whole, society will not produce wealth with people strengthening their skills but need with people increasing their needyness.

Just like people on welfare have more kids when welfare pays out a fixed amount per kid.

Call me old-fashioned, but I begrudge everyone that cheats when it comes to money. No matter if that person is dirt-poor or blindlingly rich, a deal is a deal unless either side was forced to it at gunpoint or similar. And I know that this way, we have a rather transparent and successful society as a whole, since we have the Invisible Hand helping with our resource allocation.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[PincushionMan]

Okay, I'll bite:

Freeing slaves was not what was on Republican's minds back then. If so, the Emancipation Proclamation would have been issued in 1861 instead of two years later on 1863. The real issue was State's Rights, or does a state have the right to Secede from the Union. Besides, the factories of the North needed a place to dump all those goods they were producing. So, see, Republican listened to big business, even 150 years ago. Although, I will say you are partially right, did Lincoln express a desire to see slavery limited to the states that already had it, even before he took office.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Neoprofin]

Until a driver that's taking drugs for alertness has a heart attack or one that doesn't falls asleep at the wheel.

Professional drivers (including UPS as we're talking here I assume) have a government mandated number of hours in given time period that they're allowed to work. The only way you should have drivers taking drugs / passing out is if they're cooking their log books which no reputable employer allows because all it takes is one major accident and you've got investigations into the entire companies practices. A lot of truck drivers (commercial freight carriers not Fed Ex or Wal-Mart) do work on the side, and I know a lot of them personally who do get a little generous with their numbers sometimes but no institutionalized system can stop that.

Things like the fairness of routes is a valid concern, and UPS and Fed Ex drivers do get paid bonuses for deliveries and the routes are chosen by seniority. The routes (or areas more correctly) are surprisingly static as most of the volume in a lot of areas is businesses, I assume the guys working residential are probably the low men on the totem pole.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Neoprofin]

But assuming that they aren't, paying per delivery only has three possible outcomes:

Tell that to UPS. A delivery bonus in conjunction with hourly wage which in the US you're required to pay for anything involving physical labor as a certain percentage of the job. His idea has problems, but they're not the problems you're bringing up.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Anonymous Coward]

In other parts of the world, workers unions makes sure this kind of thing doesn't "just" happen.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Anonymous Coward]

There's an easy solution to that...

OK. Deliver one punch in the mouth suitable for halting further displays of ignorance, Anyone who uses phrases like "It's Simple..." or "There's an easy solution" has no business talking about finance, politics, religion, anything to do with human interaction, or for that matter, computers.

Easy stuff doesn't get talked about, it gets done and we get on with it. If it was worth arguing about, it wasn't easy. Haven't we seen enough "easy" solutions fail lately?

Besides, the trucking industry has already tried compensation-in-the-small as a means of regulation and it failed for reasons others have already given.

Not only is the "capitalist/private-sector" approach not appropriate for all problems, a lot of problems have more than one "capitalist/private-sector" approach. Or, "socialist" approach, etc. The banking industry failed in large part because the particular capitalist/private-sector approach applied to individual executives, not to the corporation over the long term, not to the shareholders, not to the workers, customers, or public at large. Different capitalist/private-sector approaches would have resulted in different outcomes. Some perhaps better, some perhaps worse.

This is what you get when you not only live in an bipolar world, you live in one that doesn't allow for even different ways to draw the X/not-X lines.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[nullhero]

Why it seems their doing a good job of bailing themselves out!

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Antique Geekmeister]

Hold it right there at "Most certainly, drivers do make money". Most certainly, drivers do get income. But "making money" is a separate issue. But from speaking with cabbies I've gotten to know, the costs of owning or leasing a taxi are quite high, and gas and maintenance costs have skyrocketeed in the last 5 years. A lot of spare funds for entertainment and travel is way, way, down, so cabs are getting a lot less traffic. I'm fortunate that I still have work as a skilled technician pays enough that my cab fare from the airport is well justified in time saved for work, and that the costs of a car to drive to and from work when it's late and public transit is shut down are not justified. But the time spent _arguing_ with my company's finance people about it is starting to cost a lot more than it's worth.

The cabbies are feeling that pinch, a lot. The number of fares they get are way down, and the tips are _way_, _way_ down. Talk to the cabbies and see how they dress, and see how many of them are scrambling to find other work. And see how many of them got laid off of other work, and are finding out that this work is actually draining their wallets and eating their savings while they're scrambling to feed their kids, and they're _leaping_ at other available work.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[rhook]

President Lincoln was a Republican, he also freed the slaves.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Ihmhi]

In Newark, NJ, USA it's the same thing. We have your traditional tick off every second metered taxis, and we have something like you have over in Kiev.

Call up a cab, they show up in about 5 minutes. Moving? They'll bring a minivan for a little extra. Hell, the driver will help you load it up.

Anywhere within the city is (supposed) to be $10. Occasionally drivers try to rip off and call it at $12, $13, more. That's just a smaller tip they end up getting from me.

I imagine you couldn't take this trip in NYC for the same $19 it costs me.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Anonymous Coward]

As a European, I remember that it was the Republicans that fought a war to free the slaves, while the Democrats were largely in favor of keeping "those brownskins" as personal property.

How do you re-frame this?

Lincoln died over a 100 years ago. So did his supporters in the party. Those republicans are dead. We have new ones now.

I'm a social liberal and a financial conservative. The republicans lose on the first point, and they lose on the second point ad well. I'd rather "Waste" a "trillion" dollars on healthcare than war profiteering.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Jiro]

If not idling reduces their job satisfaction that much than fewer people will drive trucks, and eventually they'll have to raise wages to attract more drivers.

This assumes that "fewer people" is still not all the companies need. It's a bad economy, with few jobs, and even when there were more jobs I'd imagine the supply of truck jobs was limited. The more truckers there are compared to the number of truck jobs, the worse they can make the working conditions; if there are only enough jobs for half of them they can make the working conditions so bad that 50% of them would rather starve than work under those conditions, without raising wages at all.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[ffejie]

There are a number of gypsy cabs in NYC. They are usually black, and are more in the style of a town car than a traditional cab. They're harder to find if you're not looking, but frequently pull up on a busy/rainy night when you are trying to hail a legitimate cab. They generally charge more than the yellow cabs, and many people see them as unsafe, so they don't use them. It's not the most straightforward market, but what underground market is?

For clarification, these cabs are not licensed, and they operate outside of the authority of the rest of the cabs.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Maxo-Texas]

Well I usually tip well but I agree with your point. The best solution would be to have higher cab rates combined with more accurate fares.
Corruption is generally bad for societies that practice it widely.

People are just so harsh and the system has become so unequal over the last thirty years that I'm starting to lose respect for it.
(and don't take me wrong- I do well personally- have built houses for charity, given money to the policeman's survivors fund, and red-cross).

I've been called conservative and liberal here based on my posts so my belief that I'm somewhere in the middle seems well founded.

But what's going on at the lower middle class level of society is just driving me up the wall lately. It's so finely tuned it's more like a kind of slavery.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't have to be tracked by GPS. They can quit.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Cyberax]

Uhm. But you can get stuck in a traffic jam and pay a lot of money, even if you ride once a year.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[quantaman]

If not idling reduces their job satisfaction that much than fewer people will drive trucks, and eventually they'll have to raise wages to attract more drivers.

This assumes that "fewer people" is still not all the companies need. It's a bad economy, with few jobs, and even when there were more jobs I'd imagine the supply of truck jobs was limited. The more truckers there are compared to the number of truck jobs, the worse they can make the working conditions; if there are only enough jobs for half of them they can make the working conditions so bad that 50% of them would rather starve than work under those conditions, without raising wages at all.

Well the goods have to get there somehow. Now in a bad economy maybe some employers do try to exploit their employees to a greater degree than usual. But the moment the economy is strong again those employees might be looking for greener pastures and that boss will suddenly regret the fact that all their best most experienced employees are leaving.

I'm not a super right wing libertarian of anything, and in the employer-employee relationship I do think that the employer does have an advantage.

But I also think that people tend to forget that employees have minds of their own and aren't helpless slaves. If they are getting screwed they can, and will, leave for something better. If there isn't anything better, well maybe they weren't getting screwed after all.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[sjames]

There is a difference between simply having your productivity be roughly visible and having it micro-managed full time complete with tracking devices.

Yes, there are other hostile work environments as well, and ironically, they tend to have less overall productivity than the more relaxed ones (especially when you consider all the extra monitoring required to keep productivity up when morale is in the dump).

That work environment must sound like Dreamland Utopia to some cubicle farmers or burger flippers. It does to me, so I don't cut them their slack since they have enough already.

So why don't you become a cab driver?

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[phoenix321]

So essentially, you would re-instate slavery at the earliest possible convenience rather than fight a war against injustice?

Sounds like the Southern Democrats are alive and kicking.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[dangitman]

Uhm. But you can get stuck in a traffic jam and pay a lot of money, even if you ride once a year.

That's exactly what I'm saying! Pay for the journey you take, not the journey of others. In this case, it's known as "bad luck."

When you drive your own car, does someone else pay for the extra gas consumed when you get stuck in a traffic jam? Does someone else compensate you for the time wasted? No. So why should that be the case with taxis?

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[u38cg]

The decision to create a monopoly was more due to the fallout from the Depression, in that there were far too many drivers around - consequently, they were driving long hours and skimping on maintenance.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[ottothecow]

Except that the meter boxes are usually a pretty controlled and protected item...

in NYC they are actually quite complex, having a touchscreen unit in the back where people can swipe credit cards and stuff...it would be remarkably easy to implement something indicating out of town rate on this screen (and honestly, it probably already says it on the meter box--people just aren't paying attention)

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[ottothecow]

I don't mind the limited supply of taxis...it seems to maintain a standard of service and helps to maintain taxi availability (since licenses are expensive, there are still plenty of cabs out at less profitable times of the day but not too many out at busy times).

There is only room for so many active taxis in a city and having expensive badges is a decent way to manage that.

Also, cabbies tend to be much more aware of driving in the city than your average person. Take a big city like new york or chicago. A lot of people simply don't drive (they may be licensed but they don't drive in the city). Even those who do drive, may only know their neighborhood and other areas they frequent. Cabbies tend to know the city quite well and know the optimal routes to get places at different times of the day. I probably take a cab home from work (downtown chicago) about once a week and I can think of one driver in the past 3 months who I have had to give more detailed instructions to--and my destinations are rarely addresses on major intersections. They need to be able to do this because not everyone can tell them how--tourists might have an address and nothing more. An old trick I learned when going to ohare airport (or past it) is to follow the flood of taxis--sometimes the express lanes are a better option and sometimes they are not...the cabbies almost always get it right.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Swave An deBwoner]

Yup. That's how taxi works here in Kiev (Ukraine). When I order a taxi over the phone, I'm immediately told what the price is going to be, so you pay exactly this sum to the driver (+tips). And now it's the driver's problem to chose the shortest and fastest route. If we get stuck in a jam - I'm not paying more.

That's how it works also in NYC. There are two classes of "hired cars" here. The one being discussed in this article are "taxis", which are permitted to roam the streets looking for passengers to pick up and then charge them based on the taxi meter. They are not allowed to respond to phone or radio calls, they can only roam the streets.

The other class is usually called "limosine" but don't let the name fool you - it doesn't reek of luxury; these are the cars that are permitted to obtain their passengers via radio calls (there is usually a dispatch office that takes phone calls and then radios the car driver the location of the passenger to be picked up and the location to which he is to be delivered). They quote a rate in advance, there is no meter and they are not allowed to pick up passengers on the street if they have not been previously radioed that pickup.

So, "taxis" pick up passengers that they see hailing them as they pass on the street; "limosines" pick up passengers who have previously phoned the dispatch office to request a pickup at a given location and provide a destination.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Profane MuthaFucka]

The Republicans that knew Lincoln are all dead. The Republicans that could possibly meet David Duke, or to protest against all the brown people in the USA, or to actually fly around the world to kill them, are all alive.

The Democrats kicked the racists out in the 1960's. They landed in a very welcoming home.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Profane MuthaFucka]

President Lincoln is dead. The Republicans took in all of the racist Democrats that were ejected from the party in the 1960's. Remember the civil rights act? Remember all the Southern racist Democrats that defected to the Republicans? Remember the Republican Southern Strategy?

There you go.

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[Cyberax]

Because it's easier and a couple of percents of additional pay doesn't bother anyone?

Re:Because Cab drivers are notoriously ethical

[dangitman]

How is it easier? That means you have to calculate the average cost, and those percentage points required to stay profitable. It's much easier to charge for distance/time used.

Very easy fix

[rolfwind]

Require the use of GPS to automatically set the advertised rates at the correct points. Don't let the drivers flick the switch themselves.

Re:Very easy fix

[icebike]

Exactly.

Let the cabby set the number of passengers, and maybe customer requested wait time, but have the GPS calc the total fare.

This should also be able to eliminate deliberate "tours" where the driver takes a round about route to run up the meter just because the hay-seed passenger was picked up at the airport.

Point to point fares would also be easily calculated and computer adjusted for construction detours, but not allow the round about when there is no reason.

Re:Very easy fix

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I dunno about all that, by trying to remove all slack in the system you end up sacrificing flexibility and turning the driver into a robot. Construction detours are hardly the only reason to take a different route -- it ultimately comes down a judgment call for things that can't be easily automated. Sure, reducing unnecessary slack to improve efficiency is a good thing, just don't go too far because without enough slack the system will just end up another kind of inefficient.

Plus, drivers who are robots are going to hate their jobs which can result in all kinds of unexpected side effects (increased accident rates, disgruntled drivers looking to exploit the system in other, possibly more costly or more dangerous ways, etc).

Re:Very easy fix

[davester666]

Sure you could show, say, the Google Maps route along with the route the cab actually took to the passenger, and maybe require the route to be saved if say, the cab does take a roundabout route and the passenger complains [oops, the computer got wiped?] (as unless the passenger has detailed knowledge of the route, the driver just has to say, well, construction or accident happened so I needed to take this route).

Re:Very easy fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Having lived in Manhattan most of my life I think I can speak from a little experience here.

I take a cab at least once a day and sometimes two to three times a day. In the last 10 years i can probably name 3 times a cab driver has tried something on me, be it taking a longer slower route, pushing a button on the meter at the wrong time of day, or even sexually harass me. Actually I've been sexually harassed more times than cheated and I'm male believe it or not.

Most cab drivers are hard working, honest if not slightly abused people. Yes there are some shady characters, a few smell real bad and a couple leave you shaking your head after you peal yourself out of the back set but 100 out of one they do there job honestly and professionally.

They're already completely monitored down to the block they are on all day and night by there dispatchers. Hell last month some guy told me how he has to take his wife to work so he told a little white lie to the kid dispatcher about how he was coming back off the Jersey turnpike and would be a little late. Well boy wasn't he embarressed when the 20 year old told him the 56 year old he was lying cause he was in Columbus Circle instead. They're already subjected to so much tracking, Cops ticket them first and only, they can't talk on cell phones now you want to automate them pushing one single button because you feel you can't trust them just that much?

Hell all the cabs now have a computer with screen that shows you exactly what your being charged for with instructions the second you sit in the seat detailing all the fairs. You get cheated I say it's your own fault.

Now we want to talk about a real injustice explain to me why I'm paying the MTA .50cents a ride in taxes to keep them alive. If i wanted to take the bus i would be!!!
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-beat/Cab-Ride-Will-Cost-You-50-Cent-More-68537667.html

Re:Very easy fix

[barzok]

Assuming the GPS can be trusted to get a good enough fix all the time. Look up "urban canyons."

Re:Very easy fix

[Mr. Freeman]

What's the problem with not allowing them to talk on cell phones? If you're a professional driver ANYWHERE you're generally not allowed to talk on a cell phone because it's fucking reckless.

Re:Very easy fix

[causality]

They're already subjected to so much tracking, Cops ticket them first and only, they can't talk on cell phones now you want to automate them pushing one single button because you feel you can't trust them just that much?

I think you fail to appreciate the sequence of events here. There's every reason to trust them, up until you find hard data showing that they have been overcharging. That is what happened. At this point, it's quite reasonable to want some verification. Automation isn't necessary either. All you need is a clear, unambiguous on/off indicator to let the customer know whether the out-of-town rate in question is being applied. Why wouldn't you want that to be done openly?

Hell all the cabs now have a computer with screen that shows you exactly what your being charged for with instructions the second you sit in the seat detailing all the fairs. You get cheated I say it's your own fault.

As long as this system makes it easy to unambiguously determine, at a glance, whether or not the out-of-town rate is being applied, then yeah that's rather silly of the passenger not to take notice. It'd be your standard failure to perform due diligence. If such systems are already in place and are already a standard feature, then the next step would be to determine why so many customers have been unaware of the information they are intended to provide.

Re:Very easy fix

[John Hasler]

It's good enough to create logs on the basis of which the cabbies can be punished but not good enough to set the rate?

Besides, they only need an occasional fix. Dead-reckoning would work when no satellites are visible. The cab only has to know what county it is in.

Re:Very easy fix

[icebike]

I'm not saying dictate the route to the cabby.

Just dictate the price from point A to point B removing any incentive to tour you thru some back street route.

I'm not saying the companies can't compete on rates, just have a set rate.

Cabbies make their money on tips and quantity. Get there quicker by better knowledge and you pick up another fare that much quicker.

You never get toured when there is lots of business. Only when business is scarce.

Re:Very easy fix

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

That makes more sense. But the rate thing is going to be hard to compete on - most people flag taxis down in the street, or get them out of a taxi queue at a place like the airport. Its much less common to be in a situation where you can shop rates.

Re:Very easy fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Even simpler fix eliminate the higher charge for going into the suburbs. The drivers obviously cannot be trusted to comply the ordinance.

Re:Very easy fix

[mikael]

What about freeway exchanges (spaghetti junctions) where the roads are above each other. Would GPS be able to accurately tell the difference between the two altitudes?

Re:Very easy fix

[Trepidity]

The rate differential makes sense, though, if it can be implemented effectively (which, as the grandparent post points out, is not particularly difficult to do with GPS). It's more expensive to go to the suburbs because of a substantially higher probability that the taxi will be driving back to the city empty, so charging a higher rate is reasonable.

Re:Very easy fix

[techno-vampire]

Who cares, as long as both roads are in the same county? The point of the GPS isn't to keep track of exactly where the taxi is at all times, it's to make sure the passenger isn't being charged the suburban rate while they're inside New York.

Re:Very easy fix

[smoot123]

I got a crazy idea: how about charging the same rate, regardless of which artificial political boundary they cross?

Re:Very easy fix

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had to shop rates in Malaysia (KL). They have an "official" rate that isn't enough to live on so the cab drivers generally refuse to honor it. You tell them where you want to go and they offer you a price - take it or leave it. The only time they don't get to do that for the most part is at some of the nice hotels where they won't let them into the cab queue unless they work at the official rate. When I was last there, we walked some pretty long distances rather than go with some of the inflated prices we were offered. We were more than willing to go for more than the official rate, but not for double.

Re:Very easy fix

[GIL_Dude]

Well as already mentioned it doesn't make a lot of sense to do that. When you try, you get cab drivers refusing to take people to locations where they are unlikely to get a return fare. This makes for unhappy people since they can't get a ride. Getting a ride at a premium price is preferable and allows the cab driver to still make money on the fare. There are other areas (not sure about New York as I've never been there, but definitely both Singapore and London) where they have "congestion zones" where they charge people to drive into them and the cab charges a higher rate when you want a ride into those zones. In general it makes a lot of sense to have different rates to different places.

Re:Very easy fix

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW - those cases where you walked are examples of 'market failure' - the market was unable to provide you a service at a price you were willing to pay because there weren't enough sellers available to you, not because absolutely no cabbies were willing to meet your price, just the ones that were willing weren't available at that time and place.

Re:Very easy fix

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you fail to appreciate the sequence of events here. There's every reason to trust them, up until you find hard data showing that they have been overcharging. That is what happened.

Overcharging is not standard operating procedure, the article describes these incidents as a "tiny fraction" of cab rides in the city.

Re:Very easy fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever used GPS in NYC? I've been in cabs that show a map with your current position updated by GPS. Sometimes several minutes go by without updating the map because all the tall buildings tend to block the GPS signals. Even with this method, I don't see how this would eliminate round-about routes. It's not like the GPS knows the best route around midday traffic or that all of the East side was shut down because the President is speaking at the UN.

dom

Re:Very easy fix

[Anonymous Coward]

In NYC and Philly there is a "riders bill of rights" that is posted in the back of the cab. If you are taken well out of your way for the purpose of running up the fare you have the right and responsibility to call them out on it and the ride is free. They would much rather lose a fair than be reported to the TLC (NYC) or PPA (Philly) and it is in the laws anyway.

I've had that happen a few times, one when the cabby didn't change the surcharge rate and it was twice as high as it was supposed to be and another when he got lost and went way out of the way. The surcharge guy argued and eventually conceded and the other guy just said sorry for the delay and no charge (tipped him anyway).

Re:Very easy fix

[Anonymous Coward]

And the absolute first thing that many a taxi driver (especially the independant ones) will do is install their own switch to disable or enable the indicator light. A simple toggle switch on the wire is all it'd need. Turn switch off for all in-town dishonesty, hit toggle switch when it would actually apply.

Taxi!

[WrongSizeGlass]

Take me to the cleaners, and hurry!

Re:Taxi!

[value_added]

It's quite possible that if you live in the sprawl called Southern California, a trip to the cleaners would make you pine for the days when New York cabbies overcharged you with out-of-city rates..

Hell, when I lived in Chicago, I'd often take a limo (no, not the stretch kind) to work, and that was on a fairly ordinary salary. When I moved to LA, I was dumbfounded to learn the extent to which car and car-related expenses eat up your budget. A cab ride to the cleaners? If I could afford the trip, I doubt I could pay the cleaners.

Re:Taxi!

[countertrolling]

Follow that cab!

huh

[Anonymous Coward]

imagine that!

And how many stores...

[Anonymous Coward]

And how many stores called Bloomingdale's are there in New York?

Re:And how many stores...

[WrongSizeGlass]

Just one, Mr Coogan, why do you ask?

Re:And how many stores...

[Anonymous Coward]

I see there aren't many fans of Clint Eastwood's early movies around here.

Re:And how many stores...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because we passed it twice.

that's nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

if you don't know the city, they'll take you on a grand tour. I don't know how many times if I don't tell them EXACTLY what streets to take, they'll always go on a 30 minute odyssey to go 20 blocks.

But it's not just New York, they are just as worthless in London for pretty much the same thing.

Re:that's nothing

[timmarhy]

athens taxi drivers have them all beat. i got taken for a 60 euro ride when i was young and a little naive. admittedly i was sitting back taking in the sights not thinking, and suddenly i saw the meter flick over to 40 euro when i knew from the map i looked at it should have been 30 MAX.

when we arrived I had to pay, he had my bag with most of my money and my passport in the trunk, and would have simply driven off on me if i didn't fork out.

on the way the back it only cost 18 euro's because i told him no more then 20 up front, and made sure i had my bag this time.

Re:that's nothing

[digitig]

they'll always go on a 30 minute odyssey to go 20 blocks.

Yes, London traffic is like that too.

Re:that's nothing

[Bert64]

Taxi drivers everywhere are like this...
I picked up a taxi outside an airport in germany, showed him the address i wanted to go to and he said no problem.
He drives to the town i was heading for, and gets lost... So he stops at a gas station and gets out the car to ask for directions - with the meter running!

Since when

[camcorder]

Since when GPS measures traffic jam? I'd happily pay 5 bucks more if I won't wait in the traffic for half an hour more. That's the whole point for getting a taxi any ways (ie. being at where you want to be faster).

Re:Since when

[WrongSizeGlass]

The GPS wasn't measuring traffic, just their trips and the rates charged. It showed they were within the 5 Boroughs but were charging the 'out of town' rates. Nothing to do with traffic, everything to do with greed.

Re:Since when

[mattack2]

Ignoring the other reply, aren't cab rides charged by time AND distance? So a half hour wait in traffic would be a lot more than $5?

I saw on a TV show the other day the cab driver saying something like "the meter doesn't stop until you get out". Yeah that was fictional, but I thought something this basic would reflect real cabs.

Lots of "unimaginable" things turn out to be true

[BlueBoxSW.com]

The holocaust. Lehman Brothers goes bankrupt. The US government selling arms to Iran to fund an illegal war in central america. Flu strains from 3 different species combine overnight to form the new H1N1. Man walks on the moon and returns to earth safely.

This, on the other hand, is easily imaginable.

Anyone here NOT ripped off once or twice by a taxi driver?

logic fail

[wizardforce]

Bhairavi Desai, head of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, said the charges of rampant thievery defied logic. The new GPS technology and meters installed in every cab are the problem, not the solution, she said.

In other words, the problem isn't defrauding customers, it's getting caught.

"This is a workforce that's known for returning diamonds and tens of thousands of dollars passengers leave behind," Desai said. "To be told the same workforce is ripping off passengers for four dollars and change each ride just doesn't match."

"we have you on tape shoplifting a candy bar at the store but you've been trustworthy before so it doesn't match up."

Re:logic fail

[Anonymous Coward]

"This is a workforce that's known for returning diamonds and tens of thousands of dollars passengers leave behind"

Because if you don't steal the tens of thousands, you can get away with stealing the 8m.

Re:logic fail

[wizardforce]

I hate to reply to myself but I thought I should point out a bit of psychology:

"This is a workforce that's known for returning diamonds and tens of thousands of dollars passengers leave behind," Desai said. "To be told the same workforce is ripping off passengers for four dollars and change each ride just doesn't match."

Well I suppose that's about like the difference between stealing a pen from the bank and robbing the bank. The pen is easy for people to steal as it is easier to rationalize guilt away (it's a 10 sent pen and they've got millions of them) while it's hard to justify bank robbery (that's peoples' paycheck etc.) Then there's the odds of getting caught and the payoff: ripping someone off for a few bucks on a long cabride probably won't get you caught (well it didn't after all... until the ps that is) while stealing a 5k piece of jewelry will probably be noticed by whomever you've just effectively robbed.

Re:logic fail

[Bert64]

It's easy to get away with stealing 4-5 dollars, and if you do it often enough you make a tidy profit...
If someone loses diamonds or thousands of dollars they're going to come looking for it, and your chances of getting away with it are pretty slim.

Re:logic fail

[jabithew]

Also, realistically, the bank doesn't care about the pen. I wonder if it's the same here? By the time you've got to New York from London (for example), the last thing your wallet is worrying about is an extra $4 on a cab fare.

Re:logic fail

[BertieBaggio]

It's easy to get away with stealing 4-5 dollars, and if you do it often enough you make a tidy profit... If someone loses diamonds or thousands of dollars they're going to come looking for it, and your chances of getting away with it are pretty slim.

That and it's easier to resolve the cognitive dissonance of stealing a little while still believing that you are an honest person. Think "Oh, it's only a buck or two, it probably won't make a difference anyway" (or even "this guy makes 10x what I do; he won't miss it") versus "I'm not the sort of person who would steal thousands of dollars!".

Re:logic fail

[Maxo-Texas]

Cabbies are honest by their own standards.

Stealing someone's diamond or someone's cash would be wrong.

Boosting the daily fares up a fair wage isn't wrong.

(I mean.. come on- they make $50k in a town where $126k has the same purchasing power as making $50k in Houston. So $50k is like earning about under $25k-- i.e. near poverty if not below).

When they start to retire rich like the Wall Street folks I'll feel a little differently.

Re:logic fail

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not cognitive dissonance, stealing a few bucks from a billionaire simply isn't wrong. How do you think they got it?

cool

[nomadic]

Good, keep those tourist dollars flowing into the city economy.

Perhaps related to medallion cost?

[ErikZ]

$766,000 to buy a cab driver Medallion.

http://www.yellowcabnyc.com/uncategorized/driver-competition-hot-medallions-hit-766000

The government controls how many Medallions are in circulation, they put in an artificial ceiling. I predict the same thing happening when the government start managing health care.

Re:Perhaps related to medallion cost?

[nomadic]

The government controls how many Medallions are in circulation, they put in an artificial ceiling. I predict the same thing happening when the government start managing health care.

You mean reasonably priced services easily available to everyone?

Re:Perhaps related to medallion cost?

[jedrek]

The only effect that delimiting the number of medallions in play would have is a decimation of the livelihood of taxi drivers. Prices are fixed, so nothing would be gained from increasing competition. There would just be a lot more drivers trying to service the same number of riders.

Re:Perhaps related to medallion cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the 'Magic Obama' part of the equation that lets you have more services for more people at a lower cost.

Re:Perhaps related to medallion cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Private healthcare has a 45% average overhead. Medicare has 3%. Funny how the equation works without magic - national healthcare doesn't need to advertise itself...

Re:Perhaps related to medallion cost?

[shentino]

And we call that an increase in *supply*

You know what happens to prices when supply goes up, right?

Re:Perhaps related to medallion cost?

[Seth024]

prices go down?

It would be beneficial for many people to become cab drivers. This would decrease their income (less money per ride and less rides per driver) and you'll end up with many people barely making enough to survive on.

Re:Perhaps related to medallion cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean reasonably priced services easily available to everyone?

hahaha. when does your comedy show go on tour?

Re:Perhaps related to medallion cost?

[shentino]

If artificial scarcity in the form of medallions is required to beef things up, then I'd argue that it's an inefficient service to begin with.

Re:Perhaps related to medallion cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Our government already spends more per-head on healthcare than the British government. For this, the Brits get universal healthcare whereas we mostly get nothing; we have to buy our own healthcare.

We're already paying more than enough money to get excellent healthcare for everybody, even without including our private contributions. Healthcare professionals and the health insurance industry are raping us in the ass and you still haven't noticed.

Re:Perhaps related to medallion cost?

[michaelhood]

prices go down?

It would be beneficial for many people to become cab drivers. This would decrease their income (less money per ride and less rides per driver) and you'll end up with many people barely making enough to survive on.

so it's my job to make sure i keep every inefficient industry in business with the status quo intact?

i hope you never buy anything that's discounted either, you might drive those retailers out of business.

Re:Perhaps related to medallion cost?

[LynnwoodRooster]

On a per-patient basis, not a per-dollar basis, Medicare's administrative costs are higher than private insurance.

Re:Perhaps related to medallion cost?

[BarryJacobsen]

On a per-patient basis, not a per-dollar basis, Medicare's administrative costs are higher than private insurance.

The link you gave is dead for me (500 unexpected error), so forgive me if this is answered there.

Is that per-patient that's on private insurance but could be on Medicare vs patient on Medicare or is it just random patient on private insurance vs Medicare patient? I'd imagine the average Medicare patient to require more medical treatment than the average person on private insurance due to the fact that the qualify for Medicare in the first place.

Re:Perhaps related to medallion cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

More traffic jams as taxis flood already immensely crowded streets?

Re:Perhaps related to medallion cost?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Hmmm... Too bad about the link! Here's a summary paragraph:

When administrative costs are compared on a per-person basis, the picture changes. In 2005, Medicare's administrative costs were $509 per primary beneficiary, compared to private-sector administrative costs of $453. In the years from 2000 to 2005, Medicare's administrative costs per beneficiary were consistently higher than that for private insurance, ranging from 5 to 48 percent higher, depending on the year (see Table 1). This is despite the fact that private-sector "administrative" costs include state health insurance premium taxes of up to 4 percent (averaging around 2 percent, depending on the state)--an expense from which Medicare is exempt--as well as the cost of non-claim health care expenses, such as disease management and on-call nurse consultation services.

It's a comparison across all Medicare and all private insurance. Some individual cases may be different, but the average Medicare patient has a higher overhead as compared to the average private insurance person.

Basically, you cannot make an apples-to-apples comparison of administrative costs versus total dollars spent:

Imagine, for a moment, that Fred and Jane each have a credit card from a different bank. Fred charges $5,000 a month, and Jane charges $1,000 a month. Suppose it costs each bank $5 to produce and send a plastic credit card when the account is opened. That $5 "administrative cost" is a much lower percentage of Fred's monthly charges than it is of Jane's, but that does not mean Fred's bank is more efficient. It is purely a mathematical artifact of Fred's charging pattern, and it would be silly to compare the efficiency of bank operations on that basis. Yet that is how many analysts compare Medicare with private insurance.

Medicare is actually more expensive to administer than private insurance. And that includes the fact that private insurance administrative costs include things like State premium taxes (which, of course, Medicare is exempted from).

Re:Perhaps related to medallion cost?

[nomadic]

An artificial price ceiling means that you will have capped (not necessarily reasonably) priced services, but not available to everyone because less health care will be provided at an artificially low price.

My point was that for the TRAVELER, taxi service in NYC is relatively cheap and easy to find, despite the government control of supply and price caps. Sorry the facts interfere with your libertoonian ideology there.

Companies that provide services easily available to everyone have to have such a volume that they have shareholders. By definition, this means that consumers are not getting reasonably priced items (not the same thing as affordable). Either that, or they have government influence, paying them well above market value to produce (see corn, gasoline, utilities).

"By definition," having shareholders means that consumers aren't getting reasonably priced items? You have no idea what "by definition" means, do you? All businesses have shareholders. Every single one.

Re:Perhaps related to medallion cost?

[kramerd]

Point 1 - hence my phrase 'not necessarily reasonably' when referring to price. What does libertoonian mean? Is it just a word you made up is it just a word someone else made up and you thoughtlessly used? Either way, its meaningless. Additionally, if you had addressed the rest of my post, the traveler isn't the issue in NYC. It's the cab driver, who due to governmental control of supply and price caps, suffers for the benefit of people who do not live in the state (by the way, the political ideal you want to bash here for me having it is anti-socialism, not libertarian; just because I am pro-free market capitalism doesn't mean I want to abolish regulation. I absolutely want businesses to fail when they are failures, even if they happen to be banks). Maybe you should recognize that the benefits are far, far overshadowed by the costs. Taxi prices are only reasonable because the cost of owning a vehicle (specifically insurance, parking, and tolls) is far, far greater than taking a cab that costs the average new yorker an hour's wage each day. NYC is raking in money so that cab drivers have to turn to gouging customers (nevermind that they tend to overcharge, refuse, and abuse passengers, according to the city of new york). Really, who can blame them, when they make no money and have no employment benefits?

Point 2 - Of course I know what by definition means, that is why I used the phrase. For your benefit, it means that something is a given. Secondarily, all businesses have owners. Shareholder implies personal financial risk (up to the amount of the investment)due to the volatility and earnings of the organization. The majority of businesses do not have shareholders (majority meaning more than half, in case you got confused about words...since you use the word libertoonian you must either be mentally retarded or not a native english speaker, but I'm going with the former for discussions sake). The ones that have shareholders, by definition, have to try to make a profit, which, by definition, means that they are creating unreasonable prices. By definition, unreasonable, when referring to price, means excessive or expensive. You are confused because you are thinking that a reasonable price means not cheap (which I took time to point out, was not the intention of the word reasonable). Instead, you should have taken the common use of reasonable, meaning equitable, just, and fair. Yes, by having shareholders, a corporation is subject to government interference, which causes both price ceilings and price floors, specific business regulation (such as where or when products or services can or can't be sold), artificial barriers to entry (see your local cable company)or exit (see banks); each of which cause unreasonable pricing (and market issues, such as restaurants not being allowed to allow smoking, unless they explicitly call themselves a bar, but then requiring bars to serve food). Yes, 100 times yes, having shareholders means that consumers get unreasonable prices. It is by definition.

Re:Perhaps related to medallion cost?

[coredog64]

That Medicare is more expensive probably has a lot to do with the fact that ~ 25% of Medicare enrollees actually participate in a private insurance plan. Under Medicare Advantage, Medicare provides a pool and pays premiums to a private insurance company. Something else that very few people realize is that HHS/CMS doesn't actually process all the claims in the Medicare system. They write contracts to private entities (not more than a few of which are private insurance companies) to manage claims processing for them. Medicare for all wouldn't really do a damn thing about removing profit motives from health insurance administration.

Re:Lots of "unimaginable" things turn out to be tr

[DarkKnightRadick]

I've actually had taxi drivers either undercharge me in the end or give me the ride completely gratis, no cajoling or begging on my part.

taxi drivers, bankers, gov't., all thieves/liars

[Anonymous Coward]

spotlighting each other's foibles more&less as needed. except for the taxi drivers, they never get to target anyone, except the customers.

talk about stuff that matters, has anyone noticed how the manuf(r)actured 'weather' is treating us lately? no? probably doesn't matter?

as always, consult with/trust in your creators when attempting to distinguish the poop from the bologna.

There. Fixed it.

[dmomo]

"we have you on tape shoplifting a candy bar at the store but [remove]you've[/remove] [replacement]someone else with the same job as you has[/replacement] been trustworthy before so it doesn't match up."

Re:There. Fixed it.

[wizardforce]

Maybe so however, Desai was speaking of cabbies as an entity more than a collection of individuals. The argument that the cabbies as an entity couldn't possibly have been responsible for quite a bit of fraud because the cabbies as an entity were known to be trustworthy in prior cases to a degree still fails.

Just $4-5 overcharge?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously not good, but I don't think Taxi drivers are earning 6 figure incomes and certainly not getting rich. I mean, compared to what health care insurers do, credit cards company tactics, wallstreet bonus and the recession, I hope going after the little guys gets the least priority.

Thats new york for you!

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time I've worked with someone on the east coast (New York, Boston) it's been a recipe for being ripped off.

Those people seriously believe that it's foolish NOT to take advantage of someone whenever possible, I think it's a part of new york culture.

Re:Thats new york for you!

[Fnkmaster]

I don't think you've spent much time here if you actually think that. First of all, I would say less than 5% of cabbies are native-born New Yorkers based on my experiences living here since the mid-90s. In fact, I'd say the significant majority are recent immigrants with modest English language skills. I don't think they have suddenly absorbed their ethical code from New York City.

Unfortunately, there are a non-negligible percentage of people in the world that are dishonest. They will take advantage of somebody if they think they can to make a few bucks. This will happen in any city on the planet. The fact that it's only happened to me a few times here in New York actually shows that it's more uncommon than common. The vast majority of these instances from the data in this story seem to be perpetrated by a minority of cab drivers - the significant number of cabbies who did this once or twice probably did it by accident. The small number who did it hundreds of times are complete scumbags, sure.

Such is the way of the world. It really has zip-all to do with New York or the East Coast.

Re:Thats new york for you!

[pete6677]

Actually, its Eastern European culture. Due to the large number of immigrants, it has rubbed off on New York and other big cities around the world as well. Doing business with anyone from Russia or former Soviet Bloc nations is a GUARANTEED way to get ripped off.

I'm shocked!

[Anonymous Coward]

Taxi Driver rips off consumer, news at 11

Sweet

[FShort]

That means I have a refund coming to me, right?

BB at its max

[Jorl17]

As much as I found this info extremely useful and disturbing, I also find it utterly disgusting that "Big Brother" is becoming more and more of a reality...

What's next?, laying cameras in to see if they have their seat-belts on? Damn happy I don't live there...

Who is surprised?

[idiot900]

I live in NYC and I am not surprised in the least by this. It's amazing that it's only 75%.

The taxi drivers expended a lot of social capital vigorously opposing and even striking over the GPS units, when everyone (taxi drivers included) knew that the GPS units would help keep the drivers honest. Now that fraud has been exposed, it will be even more difficult for the drivers to gain public support the next time they are angry about something.

Re:Who is surprised?

[nomadic]

The taxi drivers expended a lot of social capital vigorously opposing and even striking over the GPS units, when everyone (taxi drivers included) knew that the GPS units would help keep the drivers honest. Now that fraud has been exposed, it will be even more difficult for the drivers to gain public support the next time they are angry about something.

Eh, the taxi drivers are in general have the T&LC's boot on their neck. Cab driving is too lucrative, and they're too disorganized, to ever successfully throw their weight around I think.

Re:Who is surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not surprised. Last year when I flew from Brazil to NYC, the amount I had to pay from the JFK to North Bergen was way up.

I knew I shouldn't tip that driver.

Re:Who is surprised?

[spire3661]

Its a no skill job. you sit, you drive, you talk. Hard to throw your weight around when we are one good innovation away from removing the need for a human to do it. Someday in the not too distant future we are going to wake up and hail a Johnny Cab, (Total Recall). Ive been thinking about this for a while, how far are we realistically away from driveless cars on (mostly)* unmodified roads? How hard is it to automate driving a car on a known circuit (city grid). *Allowing for sensor installations and machine instruction signage, failsafes, etc.

Re:Who is surprised?

[BarryJacobsen]

Its a no skill job. you sit, you drive, you talk. Hard to throw your weight around when we are one good innovation away from removing the need for a human to do it. Someday in the not too distant future we are going to wake up and hail a Johnny Cab, (Total Recall). Ive been thinking about this for a while, how far are we realistically away from driveless cars on (mostly)* unmodified roads? How hard is it to automate driving a car on a known circuit (city grid). *Allowing for sensor installations and machine instruction signage, failsafes, etc.

Technologically? Not that far. Socially - very far. Think about it - thousands of people die in auto accidents each year and that's considered unfortunate, but "acceptable". With an automated car - if even ONE person died to a computer's mistake - that'd be unacceptable and the company that made the computer would be sued into oblivion. People will ignore that fact that it would in all likelihood save thousands upon thousands of lives because A COMPUTER KILLED A PERSON, OMG!

Re:Who is surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

What taxi drivers are taught:
Set higher rate unless you know them. If comment, oh, that must be from last job.
If stupid passenger - take em pretty direct.
Don't pick up passengers who ... or from certain spots. Avoid disabled or trannies.
If you are high or drunk, don't expect the right change.

Re:Who is surprised?

[nomadic]

Its a no skill job. you sit, you drive, you talk.

Well...driving in Manhattan does require a certain level of skill.

Maybe it's not the taxi drivers

[bit01]

This is a centrally managed computer system; maybe somebody in the central office has figured out a way to illegally tack on and collect out-of-town taxi charges indirectly.

Or maybe the computer system is recording the charges incorrectly due to a bug.

Who's to watch the watchers...

---

Scientific, evidence based IP law. Now there's a thought.

Re:Maybe it's not the taxi drivers

[dudeman2]

Not true. In NYC, Taximeters are installed in individual cabs and are controlled by the driver. All the GPS/credit card/entertainment systems with two way radio communication were installed very recently. Before now it would have been impossible to prove fraud other than by hand matching receipts and rates charged to driver logbook to/from/time entries.

Shorter Taxi Workers response

[Jay L]

If this were a widespread scam, you'd have caught us at it by now.

Bullshit (except in London)

[Anonymous Coward]

it ultimately comes down a judgment call for things that can't be easily automated

At least 9 out of 10 taxi drivers in NYC do not know enough about the city's streets or the city's traffic patterns to know when it is appropriate to make a judgement call to deviate from the GPS-selected route.

If NYC required taxi drivers to pass a test comparable to "the Knowledge" test required of London taxi drivers (http://www.tfl.gov.uk/businessandpartners/taxisandprivatehire/1412.aspx), that would be a different matter.

Last spring while Cirque du Soleil was doing their "Kooza" thing at Randall's Island in NYC, only 1 out of the 20 taxi drivers that I caught from a Manhattan Hilton had even heard of Randall's Island let alone knew how to get there.

Good, the plan is working

[SmallFurryCreature]

And in return, don't expect cabbies to care when IBM outsources every IT job to India, or MS relocates to China.

Re:Good, the plan is working

[Anonymous Coward]

Cabbies care now?

Re:Good, the plan is working

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to keep it on point. I'm surprised you didn't bring up how Mexican's are stealing all the lucrative fruit picking jobs that every American wants.

Re:Good, the plan is working

[Anonymous Coward]

HA. Except for the fact they will have no one to drive around much less overcharge.

Hand washing

[moteyalpha]

New Yorkers are not typically suckers. My guess:
1. Double the fare and I will charge it to the company and get reimbursed for double tip
2. Double the fare on the company if you know where I can get a date
3. Profit!
I have seen it played many ways. This is more likely a pattern that was just hidden.
What I want to see is if (gps(politician) == gps(lobbyist)){moneyChangesHands(howMuch);} .

Re:Hand washing

[TheMidget]

New Yorkers are not typically suckers.

Or more likely: tourists visting New York are suckers. And they are plentiful and easily recognizable as such.

Re:Hand washing

[dudeman2]

New Yorkers are not suckers, and those of us who have lived here a while know roughly how much a cab ride from Point A to Point B will cost. But the taximeter labels on fare schedules ("fare 1" versus "fare 4") are subtle and easily missed. I'm sure the hacks knew to cheat people who are either (a) tourists, (b) people in a REAL hurry (c) drunks. Plenty of those to go around.

Price regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

Interstingly enough this is exactly what you would expect if somebody tries to regulate the prices - or create a 'market'. Let the taxi drivers set their prices and just check that they follow the prices they advertise.

Re:Bullshit (except in London)

[Anonymous Coward]

At least 9 out of 10 taxi drivers in NYC do not know enough about the city's streets or the city's traffic patterns to know when it is appropriate to make a judgement call to deviate from the GPS-selected route.

Okay this is baloney. 100% wrong, I know your from out of town but most cab drivers are very skilled at traffic patterns and where things are.

I'll give you the Randall's Island one, fuck I've lived here many years and couldn't get you to Randall's island myself!! There are certain places and named streets that are very difficult even for a life long born New Yorker to remember much less someone freshly off the boat. Hell my ex-girlfriend lived here all her life didn't know what streets the Empire State building was on!!!

Besides these days most have GPS and if you ask for somewhere difficult they will get you there if they have to call there brother in Pakistan to find it (yes this has happened to me!).

Re:Lots of "unimaginable" things turn out to be tr

[BlueBoxSW.com]

So you've never been overcharged?

... and this is news how?

[Miser]

Businesses (and in this case people) rip people off. It happens all the time.

Nothing to see here, move along.

Nominclature - charge residents less.

[cadience]

If I saw a "out of town" rate display, without reading the article, I wouldn't have known what it meant - because I would be an out of town tourist. An interesting twist: actually charge out of town riders more for riding a taxi and residents less. This would encourage residents to rely even more on publicly available transit.

Re:Nominclature - charge residents less.

[Anonymous Coward]

If I saw a "out of town" rate display, without reading the article, I wouldn't have known what it meant - because I would be an out of town tourist.

Then you must be extremely stupid.

Won't someone PLEASE think of the cabbies!

[VTEX]

Almost every cab driver in New York acts unethically. As someone who lives in the city and takes cabs regularly, I can attest that 95% of them attempt to scam you in some manner. Sometimes they will take a longer route, sometimes they will add extra bogus fees, sometimes they will "forget" to turn on the meter. They will try and friend you to get extra tips. Very often, they will try and complain that the credit card machine costs them money (despite the fact that the TLC increased fares specifically for them). 20% of the time those credit card machines are "broken".

They almost always conveniently forget the flat fare rate from JFK to Manhattan. One time, I was in a cab and someone cut the guy off - so the cabbie sped up and started yelling at him - needless to say I was not amused. After telling a cab driver once we were making 3 stops, he refused to take us any further than the first stop - he was "on break".

This is an industry with a history of mob control and immoral behavior. If it takes GPS to help put an end to these things - I'm all for it.

Re:Won't someone PLEASE think of the cabbies!

[audunr]

I took a cab from Manhattan to JFK yesterday. There was one sticker in the cab stating that there's a flat fare from JFK to Manhattan, and another saying it's a flat fare either directon. Both stickers looked official to me as an out-of-towner.

The doorman at the hotel was sure it was a flat fare in one direction only. So what do you have to show for it if the taxi driver insists it isn't a flat fare?

The taxi driver kept the meter on until we reached Queens, then turned it off and complained about how he was losing money because of the heavy traffic and the flat fare, i.e. he could have been making more money if he had sticked to Manhattan rides during rush hour. I think he was just trying to score more tips. And it worked, poor guy.

Re:Won't someone PLEASE think of the cabbies!

[tg123]

Almost every cab driver in New York acts unethically. As someone who lives in the city and takes cabs regularly, I can attest that 95% of them attempt to scam you in some manner

This is an industry with a history of mob control and immoral behavior. If it takes GPS to help put an end to these things - I'm all for it.

For the Taxi drivers they get such a small wage that the only way to make a living is to lie and cheat.

The one country that is the exception is Japan.

In Japan I regularly had taxi drivers stopping the meter because they had made a mistake or had to get instructions on how to get a particular place.

The Taxi industry treats drivers like machines. If that machine doesn't make money they don't get paid.

The system needs to be fairer and taxi drivers need to get paid a fair wage.

ie. for taxi drivers in york . "...drivers take home $18,000 to $22,000 a year ..." http://www.schallerconsult.com/taxi/taxi1.htm

Re:Won't someone PLEASE think of the cabbies!

[k-macjapan]

Taxis are incredibly expensive in Japan. However, the people are generally speaking honest. Therefor it doesnt shock me in the least that they would do this.

Plan on spending about $20 to go a few blocks.

Re:Won't someone PLEASE think of the cabbies!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can attest that 95% of them attempt to scam you in some manner ....

They will try and friend you to get extra tips.

How diabolical!

People don't pay admission charge for nothing ...

[timothy]

So saturated with competition that people -- mostly investors -- think it's worth it to pay upwards of a quarter million dollars (more than 400k, says Wikipedia!) and go through generally onerous licensing for a medallion? :)

When demand is high, and so are barriers to entry, you can bet those who have made it *over* the barriers aren't as constrained by competition as you'd prefer (as a customer).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_New_York_City#Medallion_taxicabs_and_livery_taxicabs

Think "Casino operator license." The Governor of Louisiana didn't go to jail because limited-entry business licenses are beneficial to society ;) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Edwards

(And it's very kind of the bureaucrats to "turn a blind eye" to the unlicensed drivers who provide taxi service at their own legal risk in areas where the regulated cabs quite rationally won't go.)

Re:Bullshit (except in London)

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

At least 9 out of 10 taxi drivers in NYC do not know enough about the city's streets or the city's traffic patterns to know when it is appropriate to make a judgement call to deviate from the GPS-selected route.

That is one huge unsupported assertion. You can provide a link to something in london that anyone can google, but you can't provide any backing support for such a massively outlandish claim?

Re:Bullshit (except in London)

[icebike]

At least 9 out of 10 taxi drivers in NYC do not know enough about the city's streets or the city's traffic patterns to know when it is appropriate to make a judgement call to deviate from the GPS-selected route.

Okay this is baloney. 100% wrong, I know your from out of town but most cab drivers are very skilled at traffic patterns and where things are.

Exactly. From out of town.

Those are the people who get toured around. Locals would tell know when the driver is joy riding them, call them on it, and think nothing of it. Out of town people get shafted because they don't know the city.

Explains a lot

[jonnat]

That certainly explains why NY cab drivers threatened to go on strike when the City mandated GPS devices in each car.

1.8 million incidents out of 360 million trips

[j1m 5n0w]

The 1.8 million fares represent a tiny fraction of a total 360 million trips over the 26-month period in question.

Taxi drivers are people. People make mistakes. One mistake per two hundred trips does not seem unreasonable, especially considering that the frequency of incidents per driver probably follows a power-law distribution and the median number of mistakes per driver is likely much lower. Another way of looking at it is that 25% of drivers didn't make a single mistake in more than two years of driving.

Which isn't to say that these were all honest mistakes. However, I don't see this as the massive systematic fraud the article seems to be suggestion. A 0.5% chance of being overcharged just doesn't seem like something to get excited about (even if I lived in New York, which I don't).

Re:1.8 million incidents out of 360 million trips

[oldsaint]

How many "mistakes" were made to undercharge the customer?

Re:1.8 million incidents out of 360 million trips

[Jazzer_Techie]

From TFA:

The investigators determined that 36,000 drivers improperly activated the higher rate at least once, and that about 3,000 drivers did it more than 100 times.

I doubt the 3000 drivers who did it 100+ times did it by accident.

Re:1.8 million incidents out of 360 million trips

[Anonymous Coward]

Did the article mention how often the drivers should have charged the higher rate and forgot to? it would seem that if this were an honest mistake, then these numbers should be similar. If, on the other hand, the errors are always in the taxi drivers favor, then I would think that makes it more likely something sneaky is going on. It may also be that only a few drivers are doing it.

The incidence may even be much higher among passengers who are not aware of the fare changes.

Making it obvious to the passenger probably won't help much - no one is going to know what the light indicates.

Re:1.8 million incidents out of 360 million trips

[idiot900]

One mistake per two hundred trips

It's pretty hard to confuse being inside NYC for being out of town. Given the state of traffic in NYC, it's easy to hit a pedestrian or another car. Do these same drivers have a one in two hundred trips accident rate?

Re:1.8 million incidents out of 360 million trips

[Bob-o-Matic!]

The 1.8 million fares represent a tiny fraction of a total 360 million trips over the 26-month period in question.

Taxi drivers are people. People make mistakes. One mistake per two hundred trips does not seem unreasonable, especially considering that the frequency of incidents per driver probably follows a power-law distribution and the median number of mistakes per driver is likely much lower. Another way of looking at it is that 25% of drivers didn't make a single mistake in more than two years of driving.

I agree. Surgeons are people, as are engineers, airline pilots, lawyers, nurses, construction workers, and pretty much any other kind of worker. Who cares if they are dishonest or make mistakes once every 200 tasks?

Back to the topic: I have never experienced dishonesty with Korean cab drivers in two tours and a number of side trips there. Regular cabs (not the deluxe cabs) are very affordable. US armed forces members take note: Korean cabs are less expensive than AAFES cabs.

My last tour at Osan I took a cab to base nearly every morning once there was enough snow and ice to make walking from the Korea Telecom building (very near where I lived) to the main gate. Also took a cab for every trip to the landromat. And on many other occasions.

Of course it helps if you speak Korean; it always blows their minds when a caucasian speaks their language. This means adhering to conventions of respect which are not taught in bars.

Re:1.8 million incidents out of 360 million trips

[MartinSchou]

One mistake per two hundred trips does not seem unreasonable

The interesting thing is if you compare it to working a register. Giving back change manually incurs mistakes. Even if you're 100% honest, you're going to make mistakes. The difference here being that those mistakes work both ways. One customer will get a few cents too much back, another will get too few.

At the end of the day, you're going to see maybe 20 cents mismatch on a thousand dollars. More than that and you had to recount it (we didn't have counting machines). If the discreprancy was still larger than that, you posted those money, and you had some explaining to do. The thing is, when you make these small mistakes, you will lose about as much as you will gain. The cab drivers only saw a gain.

That's not a mistake. That's fraud.

Re:1.8 million incidents out of 360 million trips

[khallow]

One mistake per two hundred trips does not seem unreasonable

How many opportunities do they get to make this "mistake"? If it's also 1 in 200, then there might well be a problem.

Re:1.8 million incidents out of 360 million trips

[Neoprofin]

That's a good question. Are you imply you don't believe a cabby has ever forgotten to turn on the meter?

Re:Bullshit (except in London)

[jabithew]

In London, TfL does the shafting with the ridiculous pricing scheme for Tube fares, clearly designed to spring tourists for money.

Anyone who's visiting London; if you are going to get more than two single tube journeys in zones 1-2, it's cheaper to buy a day travel card. In fact, it's only slightly more expensive to buy an Oyster and a day travel card, and you can get your deposit on the Oyster refunded when you leave.

Spot Checks, offenders have medallions revoked.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are Taxi Authorities in NYC right? Occasional spot checks, if they commit fraud and get caught doing it, they lose their medallion. Sometimes the cabdriver isn't the owner of the medallion but if so that Cab Driver owes the owner big time. NYC Taxi Medallions don't come cheap between half and 2/3 of a million if I remember correctly.

0.6% of trips are overcharged. So what?

[Que_Ball]

So there are 13,257 medallions in new york.

Lets estimate each cab makes an average of 30 trips per day. So every day there are about 397710 cab trips made or 145 million trips a year.

They are saying that 1.8 million trips were overcharged over a period of 2 years. So over 2 years there were about 290 million trips of which 1.8 million were overcharged.

So approximately 0.6% of the trips made were overcharged by about $5.

Doesn't sound like it's so bad to me. Half a percent is a legitimate rate of errors for any human endeavour. So the previous trip was out of the city area and the rate wasn't switched back for the next rider would be a good example of how that would happen.

The story seems a little sensational to me. I'm sure there are a few legitimate abusers but the numbers don't seem to imply a widespread problem to me.

ice road truckers are payed like that.

[Joe The Dragon]

ice road truckers are payed like that.

Re:Bullshit (except in London)

[icebike]

What if we eat the Oyster? Can we get a deposit back on the shell?

Or maybe once you are addressing people who do NOT live in London, you might want to explain what an Oyster is?

Re:Lots of "unimaginable" things turn out to be tr

[Anonymous Coward]

When you have to blow the driver for the ride, it's not "completely gratis", regardless of how much you enjoy it.

Just to balance things out

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe some of them are cheating and maybe there are mistakes. But what I find interesting is that we're looking at eight million dollars over two years. given the population of New York City, that's around, what, $0.50 per person, per year? I drop more change than that on the sidewalk in the run of a year.

Free for all

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a free for all to get ripped off, until every aspect of peoples lives are tracked. Then you'll know what people are tipping short. Who's been short changed. It won't be so bad.

It's simple

[Anonymous Coward]

From the site: www.tfl.gov.uk
Oyster is generally the cheapest way to make single journeys in the Capital.
An Oyster card can store up to £90 of credit, which can be used to pay as you go, plus your Travelcard or Bus & Tram Pass.
It can be used on bus, Tube, trams, DLR, London Overground and National Rail services in London.

So... there you go. It's a uhh.......... card that stores credit along with your Travelcard and/or Bus and Tram pass(es?). So it's a credit card with an extra compartment for those other passes. You can use it.. er.. I mean it can be used on buses or Tubes or trams or DLR or on the overground (aboveground? maybe airways?) in London.

Re:0.6% of trips are overcharged. So what?

[kramerd]

I would like to agree with you, but I can't, because you are wrong.

Its not a mistake, when you have a gps system on the vehicle that determines the rate. It tells the system whether you are in rate 1 area or rate 2 area. The vast majority of trips do not cross the border where the higher rate is used. Clearly, manual overrides are causing the issue. There is no reason, at all, for a gps to say you are a different city than you actually are, especially for an entire trip. There is no reason that trips across borders can't use a limited increased rate for the distance in which travel is across borders (ie change rates when changing areas, and not before, or having explicit rates based on area).

Hell, if 10% of NYC taxi trips changed cities requiring a change in rate, this would be a 6% error, which no accountant would allow for a system that relies on gps (especially in NY, where it is harder to not find a signal than it is to be attacked by a shark. Yes, shark attacks are more likely than lack of satellite in NY). Don't even try to claim that taxi drivers are not gouging tourisits and people who dont speak english. 0.6% is not an acceptable rate of failure for computer based error. Just ask Toyota, who shut down manufacturing due to less than 1% of 0.6% error.

Try thinking first before posting next time, m'kay? I don't care what your answer is, you should try thinking anyway. Yes, you should. If you think otherwise, don't post again, because you will once again be very, very, very wrong ( and not just incorrect).

The Taxicab Story in Washington, DC

[GTarrant]

In Washington, DC, taxicabs used to charge via a "zone" system - it didn't matter how far you went (necessarily) - the city was divided into multiple "zones", and the rate was charged based on how many zones you had to travel through to get to your destination.

People (particularly tourists) complained about this system because it didn't make complete sense and a tourist, or even just someone not familiar with the zone map, wasn't going to be able to look at the map and see where the zone boundaries were. As an example, if I was in a hurry, I could take a taxi from my home, to work. The total was 3 zones (with a minimum, of course, of 1). However, if I walked 1 block south from home, hailed a taxi, and had it drop me off 1 block north of work, it would be 1 zone. That would save a good percentage of the cab fare.

However, a tourist getting in the car would have no idea - furthermore, if a tourist was being dropped off, say, right near a border, if the cabbie says "Hey, traffic is bad here, mind if I drop you off across the street?" most people would say "OK", figuring that in most cities, that's probably nothing, or maybe an extra quarter or so. In DC, it could be an extra $2.

A little over a year ago DC switched to a metered taxi system, as mandated by Congress. Prior to the switchover, taxi drivers in DC went on strike, saying they'd lose significant money in a switch, despite the fact that the rates were set such that the average metered trip would actually net more for the driver than the old zone system would - but only under the assumption (which the people setting the rates were using) that the zone system was being used fairly and customers were not being diverted, sometimes only short distances, in order to add zones (sometimes, near zone borders, moving a few blocks could be two extra zones!).

You'd get a constant circle:

Taxi Driver Committee Representative: "We'll lose tons of money switching to meters!"

Taxicab Commission: "But under this new system, a driver would actually be getting more money on an average trip than before, unless they were routinely cheating customers in a way the new system would prevent. Look, we'll open the books to you, examine the whole thing."

Taxi Driver Committee Representative: "Ah. I see. We, of course, have never cheated anyone. But notwithstanding that, we'll lose tons of money!"

The change took place anyway, and the world hasn't ended, although the data does seem to reflect that cabdrivers are making less than before, yet somehow the data also shows that they're making more per trip than before. How? Because before they were manipulating the system to charge more.

I doubt this is any different. Most people in the cab in NYC aren't going to notice if the fare is $X or $X+4, unless they're a native. Just like I could tell my cabdriver in DC "No, drop me off here" whenever they tried to move an extra block near a zone boundary, a native might catch it. But someone unfamiliar? No. Thus, I'm going to side with the GPS on this one.

Re:The Taxicab Story in Washington, DC

[pandymen]

It's all on the passenger in my opinion. I believe taxis in New York are just like those in Chicago where there is a poster showing the rates and rules. Any passenger can easily tell if they are getting overcharged by checking the meter against the poster. The only people who might get exploited are the totally hammered people going from bar to bar. In which case, the extra 4 dollars is about half the cost of a drink...so it doesn't really matter much in the long run. When I am totally hammered in a taxi, I don't really care how much they charge me as long as I get there.

Re:The Taxicab Story in Washington, DC

[drinkypoo]

In Panama, taxis in the capital are also on a zone system. But they also have special gringo fares. Make sure to find out what you're paying before you get in the cab...

The little LEDs

[Anonymous Coward]

The meter does show what travel rate you are being charged + any extra fees in effect. Tourists, people in a big hurry and drunks sometimes can get scammed, but honestly not by that much. Because of the meter, even a scammed tourist in NY is paying a less for the ride than the regular fares in most 1st world cities. That's not to say I'm perfectly happy with taxi drivers. Too many think it is ok for them to be gabbing on the cell phone while working. And a few don't keep their cabs as clean as they should.

For people outside of NYC, the GPS in cabs is only for the rider as part of a system that blares insanely loud advertising at the rider. The cab driver does not have access to GPS unless they suction cup their own GPS to the windshield. Most Taxi medallions are sold in batches of twenty to keep owner-drivers out, hence the need to suction cup the GPS into the cab they rent for 12 hour shifts.

Trips outside of Manhattan can cost a driver a lot of dough because they basically only get paid for one leg of their trip. For most trips outside the city the rate is negotiated between the driver and rider before the trip commences. Usually you pay about twice what you would for an in city ride of the same distance. Westchester and Nassau are the two exceptions to this and basically get a 33% discount over normal rates since the double rate doesn't kick in until the moment you cross the city border and those are the two borders furthest from the city center. Unlike with the old meter, with the new meter Taxi drivers are supposed to press the in-city button for these two out-of-city destinations (the new meter automatically switches to out-of-city when you cross the city border), but this article is saying that 75% of cabbies pressed the out-of-city button at least once in an 18 month period prior to the border crossing* for one of these two out-of-city destinations and one driver pressed the out-of-city driver 574 times in one month (he was presumably the one that caused the investigation to be undertaken.) Presumably he did so even for trips entirely within city limits as it is hard to imagine him making that many out-of-city trips in a year, much less one month.

*On some routes the border is unmarked and happens at some point during a long drive through the woods, with the old meter the driver had to press the out-of-city button at some point during the ride through the woods.

PS Not all "Cabs" are metered in the city, outside of Manhattan you usually use what we call a "Car Service" but in most cities is called a "Radio Cab", these quote you a rate over the phone or when you hail them. They tend to be a bit less well maintained than the metered cabs and most significantly can not be hailed in the Manhattan CBD. They are sometimes be cheaper and you can call them to pick you up in the CBD. The car service drivers are much less regulated and most will quote you a higher price if you ask how much the ride is near the end of the ride.

Let Indian Auto-rickshaw drivers train them

[fly1ngtux]

After seeing this, I made post about our 'honest' auto drivers in India who (mostly) do not cheat at all! I have made the entry at my blog, http://sarin.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!84A33C7E2C38DB8A!309.entry

Fix: taxis should be metered only

[cbope]

Replace the antiquated system. Taxis should only ever be either a metered service paid according to the time/distance it takes to get from A to B, or a fixed pre-determined price. Zone-based systems and higher rates which the driver can tack on indiscriminately are begging for abuse. The only extra fees allowed should be for extra passengers (clearly shown on the meter), tolls and the like.

Here in Finland all taxis are metered, extras are clearly shown on the meter and I can see the meter at all times. There is only one metered rate. It would be very difficult to abuse the system although it's probably possible. Of course a metered system cannot prevent a taxi driver taking a longer route, but that does not seem to be an issue with NY taxis according to TFA. If you pay attention, you should know if the driver is taking a longer route. Know the route, Google maps is your friend.

Re:Bullshit (except in London)

[Anonymous Coward]

The point of the Oyster card is that you don't have to bother with all this, you pay for single tickets but the amount you pay per day is limited to the price of a day ticket.
Generally they promise that you will always get the cheapest price to make the travels you did.
The biggest issue I have with the scheme is that it is very hard to verify it's actually working out (in particular I have some doubts that they handle the low- and high-price times well), however to be honest I considered the prices more than acceptable if you are only there for a tourist visit.

Hohum!

[BigBadBus]

Now theres a surprise! Does this story qualify for a "No shit, Sherlock" prize?

Jeez why so complicated ?

[aepervius]

Here around : 2 euro initial fare, then 1.3 euro day (1.7 night I think) inital kilometer, then 1.1 (1.5) after 10 kilometer up to 30 or 50 kilometer. You have to tell if you want to go much more than 50 kilometer. Night and day tarif are CLEARLY indicated. Why make such a complex thigns as zone, or urbain/suburbain tarif is beyond me unless it was set from the start to confuse people.

This is how capitalism works.

[Colin Smith]

It's easy to get away with stealing 4-5 dollars, and if you do it often enough you make a tidy profit...

This is the basis of banking. The loans which banks make are essentially, value removed from the existing pot of money. Each loan represents a few fractions of a cent removed from everyone's paycheck &/or bank account.

There is a hypothetical moral question which is commonly asked in psychological personality tests. "If you found a way of stealing a tiny amount of money from everyone, knowing you could never be caught. Would you do it?". Superman III was even about this particular moral question. It's not actually hypothetical, it's how our monetary system works.

The irony of course is that naive parents educate their children that taking something without consent is bad, when actually it's the very core of our society.
 

Re:This is how capitalism works.

[Bert64]

It's not really without consenting...
By putting your money in the bank you are consenting to the bank using that money while it's there, in exchange they will guarantee it against theft (probably not by choice, but by virtue of it going into a big pot and making it impossible to tell who owns what), paying you some level of interest for the use of your money and providing various services to manage and use the money.
If you don't like that, you are free to keep cash in your own safe or under your bed etc.

Re:Lots of "unimaginable" things turn out to be tr

[DarkKnightRadick]

not once.

Re:Lots of "unimaginable" things turn out to be tr

[DarkKnightRadick]

Nice insult. I hope you didn't have to dust off your notebooks for that one.

Re:Bullshit (except in London)

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been to NYC once. For a week. Out of the 15 or so cabs I took, at least half of them didn't know WTF we were going. For my first journey, from JFK to Jersey City, I had to give the guy directions! Thankfully, my destination was a tall building that I could see from 2 miles away, and I'd browsed my destination on StreetView, and so was able to work out where were were going for the last 0.5 mile.

Try the same exercise in London, and if you insinuated to the taxi driver that he didn't know where every street in London was, you'd probably be told to get out and walk. The service-level is completely different - black cab drivers know every road in Central London.

Re:Lots of "unimaginable" things turn out to be tr

[Alan R Light]

me neither. More like almost every time I get in a cab. I got sick of it. I'll walk several miles now, rather than take a cab.

unethical in many countries

[Alan R Light]

Having travelled around the world, I can tell you that the taxi drivers in MANY cities do this tourists.

For example, locals will tell me that I should not pay more than 2X amount to go to a certain destination, but no taxi driver will take me there for less than 3X, and many try to get me to pay even more. They figure that as a foreigner I'm easy prey.

I've had taxi drivers insult me when I refuse to go with them, and I've gotten to the point where I enjoy pissing them off. I've walked miles with 25 kg of luggage rather than take a taxi. In one case, I knew what bus I wanted, and a taxi driver stepped in to "help" and told the ticket seller I was going somewhere else, so I paid many times the real rate for my bus ticket. I couldn't do much because they were both speaking Romanian and the taxi driver was pretending to be my interpreter despite my objections (and Bucharest has a really weird way of buying bus tickets - you can't buy them on the bus). I've heard of far worse - several of these instances were at the train station in Bucharest, where the gypsy taxi drivers are about as corrupt and downright thieving as they get, and they refuse to leave foreigners alone, even when asked to go away. I was told by a hotel owner that when the currency there had more zeros and was quite confusing, one taxi driver charged a confused guest over 400 euros for a 1 km trip, and the guest had to go home the next day because they had no more money.

But while the taxi drivers may be more polite in other places, almost everywhere a large number of them will attempt to overcharge - sometimes by great amounts. Unfortunately, in some places taxis are unavoidable, but I certainly don't take them when an alternative is available because I don't want to give them the satisfaction.

It's not necessarily that tourists are suckers, but when you're in a foreign city where everyone speaks a foreign language, what are you going to do about a taxi driver who rips you off? Go to the police, where the taxi driver will just complain that you tried to stiff him while you're still trying to say "hello" in the local language? Stiff them and risk attack? Attack them and risk dealing with a police force that is usually also corrupt? Complain to the police and find out that I managed to find the one case where I missed some local custom and the taxi driver is right (or at least that the police will back them up)? Or do you just pay the corrupt taxi driver surcharge and swear never to return to that godforsaken city again?

(Actually, Bucharest was OK except for the taxi drivers at the train station, though another taxi driver did take me the long way around once. They do have one nice idea: each taxi can set their own rates, as long as they are prominently advertised. Those who were fair with me got big tips. But the same general rule holds for other types of corruption: I don't intend to return to the UAE, Zambia, or Bali - and ESPECIALLY not Thailand, despite the fact that the taxi drivers there appear to be the only people who ARE honest - because I don't like dealing with a populace that treats visitors as prey.)

why not let them go on strike?

[Alan R Light]

Wouldn't that be sufficient cause to get rid of the medallion system, which would lower prices across the board?

Re:Lots of "unimaginable" things turn out to be tr

[DarkKnightRadick]

If I was treated like that, I wouldn't blame ya (and I still don't, it's completely wrong to steal like that).

Still, I've not once been overcharged.