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A few years ago, the answers to the D.C. taxicab licensing test were compromised and passed around all over town. As a result, the city put a freeze on new testing and licensing for cab drivers in 2005, even for individuals who had already paid for and passed the required 60-hour training course offered at UDC (it costs $375). Well today the Examiner is reporting that starting in January, the city will once again start offering the licensing exam. The rewritten exam will only be open to people who have passed the UDC training program, but even under that condition, there are apparently already at least 2,000 people eligible for the exam right now.
There's no way to know how many of those people will choose to pursue a taxi license at this point - if you took the class in 2005, presumably you've moved on to something else by now. Even more importantly, there's no way to know whether those who did get a license would choose to buy their own car and operate independently, as opposed to working part-time for an existing company. Still, the bottom line is that starting in January, we should beging see some kind of increase in the number of taxis on D.C. streets.
Considering Washington already has the highest number of per capita taxis in the country, who do you expect to see pushback on this issue over the next couple of months?
a) Existing cab drivers worried about even more competition
b) Environmentalists worried about increased smog
c) Urban planners concerned about increased congestion
d) Ward 1 D.C. Council member Jim Graham
e) All of the above
f) Who cares, more cabs for me!
Photo by cstein96
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They need to do mandatory drug testing for some of these cabbies, because I swear half of them are driving like they're high. But does khat show up in urinalysis? If so, I've got a steady supply of pristine 3- and 5-year-old's urine that goes to the highest bidder. Si habla Eritrean.
Does DC really have the highest number of taxis per capita in the country?! That's surprising, considering how difficult it is to find one at times. Either way, I'm all for more taxis, but I'd be even more impressed if the Taxicab Commission put real effort into enforcing the rules. If I had a free ride for every time a taxi driver refused to take me to a destination, I'd never need to buy a car. I've even filed complaints, with documented evidence of transgressions like these, but to no avail (I've received a response saying the commission will look into my complaint, but never received a follow-up with the outcome).
Yes! More cabs! It is very difficult to get a cab from DCUSA. This is a ridiculous state of affairs. Thank goodness I don't live in one of the huge numbers of under- or un-served neighborhoods in this town where a taxi never passes by at all.
With respect to the quality of the cabbies, well, what murrayw76 said, all the way.
Will these new cabbies pick up black people when it gets dark? Do they need new eyes or something because the old ones just can't see me in the dark.
It's like, they see my eyes and then they peel out as if their soul was on fire.
Does anyone know if how the new rule that says you can only get a taxi license if you are dc resident affected taxi drivers? I remember hearing a lot of talk before in went into effect, but am hearing nothing now.
What DC as is the most screwed up statistics per capita in the country. Because we are a small city, with big amenities, and the pool of "capita" is usually taken from the >600K people in the actual city, the statistics are always wack. Once you add the 2M people from Va. and Md. who use the city like it was theirs, we would probably have the fewest cabs per capita in the country- Just another problem of having a inner beltway area made up of at least 13 "cities." which would explain why it is impossible to get one almost everywhere.
Only $375?
And it's taught at UDC?
Now it's all starting to make sense.
stmove, I'm not sure your observations are correct in this instance. For one thing, the per capita cab number probably doesn't take into account MD and VA cabs that pick up and drop off people in DC (although not both in one trip).
The fact is, DC is unusual in how easy it is to become a cabbie. In cities with medalion systems, it is extrememly expensive to start being a cabbie. Unfortunately, in DC there is an attitude (at least as expressed by Marc Fischer) that we should use our cab system as a means by which to help immigrants and others to start a business. In other words, it's a jobs program.
Unfortunately, in DC there is an attitude (at least as expressed by Marc Fischer) that we should use our cab system as a means by which to help immigrants and others to start a business
I know! Let's get the kids from the Summer Youth Employment Program to drive cabs!
So what exactly do you get for your $375? Lessons on how to claim an extra $7 by insisting on putting a purse in the trunk as "luggage?" How to ignore black customers? How to hide your khat stash in your butthole? Because I teach all those things in my Learning Annex Course: So You Want To Be A Racist Shyster Who Walks Funny. And it's only $30!
Funny how, instead of making it harder for morons to get a DC hack license and thereby improve the quality of cabs, or to making it easier for out-of-town cabbies to operate in DC and thereby deliver more service, the Council decided to keep cabs a DC-resident-only boondoggle.
And by "funny" I mean "dumber than a sack of hammers."
Blittle, it's not a taxi license you need to be a DC resident for, it's the right to register the vehicle itself. Non-residents can still get a taxi license, they just have to drive a car owned by a cab company rather than go into business for themselves. (Although most cab companies treat their drivers as independent contractors, so I suppose they'd still technically be in business for themselves.)
I don't think it's had much of an effect so far, since the city addressed all the foofaraw you allude to by adding a grandfather clause -- most out-of-state cab drivers who had already registered a taxicab can still do so. And since it happened when the taxi exam wasn't being offered, there wasn't a large pool of new drivers saving up to register a vehicle. It may have an impact on how many of those potential new cabbies choose to take the test, however, since they won't be grandfathered in.
Disclaimer: in the past, I have had occasion to work with the D.C. Taxicab Commission in a professional capacity, and may do so again in the future. Any opinions expressed above are solely my own, and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer or the D.C. Taxicab Commission.
I know! Let's get the kids from the Summer Youth Employment Program to drive cabs!
I'd be all for it...judging by the youth joyriders that we hear about so much they'd be a safer ride than cabbies in this city.
I don't know, for all the complaints I hear about the taxis here, they overall are phenomenal in comparison to those I experienced in Chicago before I moved here. As a bonus, I've had some great late-night drunken political discussions or debates with cabbies in this city. In Chicago, you're lucky if the seats aren't sticky, the guy knows where to take you, and he isn't ranting on his cell phone the whole time. I was so pleasantly surprised when I got here to realize how many of the cabbies play NPR.
I want to know why all these people are applying for licenses since we were told that with the new meters, cabbies couldn't make a living. Maybe all the predictions of doom about the new meter system weren't true? Just maybe?
reid: you beat me to it.
i was going to say:
g) marc fisher.
Maybe indeed, Skeptic, but it's still too soon to tell. These would-be cabbies have been waiting for this test since before time and distance meters were introduced -- like the cabbies we have now, they wanted to be cabbies under the zone system. We'll have a better idea, say, six months from now, when we see how many of them have taken the test, become taxicab drivers, and stuck with it.
Disclaimer: in the past, I have had occasion to work with the D.C. Taxicab Commission in a professional capacity, and may do so again in the future. Any opinions expressed above are solely my own, and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer or the D.C. Taxicab Commission.
We need a medallion system, and, yes, we still view cabs as a jobs program rather than an integral part of a public transit system.
I ride in a cab to the same place every week and the
price always changes. My fare should be $6.50 but they manage to throw in an extra charge to bring it up to $10.00 or they take the long way. I remember the old days before the meters when they used to charge us people of color, 'The Secret Black Person Fare'. One driver explained it to me, he said," You black people go to dangerous areas. It puts the driver at risk so that's why we charge you more."
(True story)
Deep, ever-changing fares are a feature of time and distance meters. Cab stopped at a yellow instead of running through? Your fare went up by a quarter. Car in front of you didn't signal that they were turning left from Connecticut? Get stuck behind the Maryland-plated-moron, and pay fifty cents. And, yes, there's always the "scenic route" approach to routing, or the classic crooked meter, for people who really want to screw a few bucks from the passenger's wallet.
Cheating cabbies are why I personally preferred the zone system -- I knew exactly how much it would be, in advance, between any two points in the city, and if the cabbie tried to cheat me I could come down on him like a load of bricks. And the cabbies could generally tell that, so it was in their best economic interest to get me to my destination as fast as possible, even if they had to break the rules of the road, or physics, to do it. But now, what can I say? "You didn't need to let that car merge in, and it caused you to miss the light, so refund me fifty cents?" We have a fare system that rewards inefficiency, and we get inefficient rides.
Disclaimer: in the past, I have had occasion to work with the D.C. Taxicab Commission in a professional capacity, and may do so again in the future. Any opinions expressed above are solely my own, and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer or the D.C. Taxicab Commission. (In this case, I think I can guarantee that my employer and the D.C. Taxicab Commission would rather eat poison than agree with me.)
We need a medallion system, and, yes, we still view cabs as a jobs program rather than an integral part of a public transit system.
Better yet, a jobs program for Maryland residents.