TAXI FOCUS
ble fleet for over a decade is pretty shameful.” Wolinsky believes his group could still win the case through other argu- ments that weren’t addressed by the appeals court. Edith Prentiss of the Taxis For All Campaign agreed. “This ruling will not stop us,” she said. “We have been fighting for the rights of persons with disabilities to use this public transportation system for a decade, and the fight will continue.”
TAXI GROUP SAYS THOUSANDS OF DRIVERS
JOINED CHICAGO STRIKE Thousands of Chicago taxi drivers went on strike on Monday, 2nd July from 6 am to 11 am to highlight their frustration with new city regulations that raised the rates taxi drivers pay to lease their vehicles without allow- ing a corresponding fare increase to offset the expenses. The strike, which organisers say will be replicated every Monday morning until demands are met, was planned by the United Taxi Drivers Communi- ty Council, which represents about 2,000 drivers and counts on the solidarity of many more. “There’s usually six or seven thousand taxis driving around Chicago on a Monday morning, but one of our 37-year veterans estimated 75 per cent of them took the morning off,” taxi driver spokesman Michael McConnell told the Chicago Sun-Times. The taxi staging area at O’Hare Airport, usually flush with several hundred cabs, was empty at 7:30 am, said McConnell. The 15 taxis usually lined up outside the Sheraton were nowhere in sight at 10:30 am, he added. At issue is the lease-rate system, which mandates drivers pay between $595 to $707 (£384 to £456) to rent a cab for a week - with costlier rates applying to newer, more fuel efficient cars. The new rates came into effect Sunday 1st July. The previous weekly rate was capped at $513 (£330), said McConnell. “We want fare rates increased 22 per cent,” said McConnell. “There has- n’t been a fare increase since 2005, and with cost of living and fuel having gone up ... and now these lease increases are the straw that broke the camel’s back,” he said. City Council Transportation Committee Chairman Anthony Beale vowed to hold a hearing this summer on the drivers’ petition for a 22 per cent fare hike. But the drivers say a hearing alone will not be enough. They won’t stop striking on Monday mornings until the City Council approves a fare hike. Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration contends that
recent reforms
paved the way for cab- bies to drive newer, more fuel-efficient vehicles, be yanked off the road more quickly for dangerous driving and spend no more than 12 straight hours on the road.
bats hitting me (but) one guy punched me in the face,” he said. “They didn’t say anything to me, they just smashed the car and straight away asked for the money.” Singh handed over $150 in cash and his phone. One of the men punched him before the group sped off in the cars. He suffered a bloodied lip in the attack. Taxi owner Sunny Singh said one of his drivers was attacked. He said finding people to work during the night was becoming increasingly diffi- cult. “They’re very scared, they don’t want to drive any more - no one knows what might happen next,” he said. He said taxis needed to have an alarm button to call the police. Sunny Singh said assaults on drivers were increasing, but nobody was con- cerned enough to do anything about it. “We report incidents regularly but nobody is listening to us,” he said. “We have to put a stop to this, nobody wants to work the night shift any more, they are just too scared to drive,” he told The Age. Daniel Samuel, a spokesman for the Victorian Taxi Association, said there was a real concern that the latest attacks seemed to have been planned. “It would appear that these are organised attacks and robberies. It must be terrifying for the drivers,” he said.
Mmmm...Sounds all too familiar - as in the UK - Ed.
from Europe TOURISTS WARNED BY AA OF
‘APPALLING’ TAXI SERVICES ABROAD Tourists heading overseas this summer may have to contend with an unacceptable standard of taxi service, according to a survey published by the AA. The Telegraph reports that travellers are pay- ing over the odds, being taken on “long routes” and are having to contend with journeys at break- neck speeds, it suggests. Eurotest, a consumer testing programme based in Belgium, carried out test rides in 22 large Euro- pean cities, covering five routes per location. In
Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport from Australia INDIAN TAXI DRIVERS NOW AFRAID TO DRIVE IN
MELBOURNE Indian-origin taxi drivers in Melbourne, whose vehicles were attacked by a gang wielding baseball bats, say they are so scared they don’t want to drive at night any more as “no one knows what might happen next”. A gang of seven men used stolen cars to stop five Indian cab drivers in dif- ferent suburban areas before attacking the taxis with baseball bats and demanding cash, according to the Herald Sun. The five attacks occurred in Sunshine, Brooklyn and Laverton North in west Melbourne between midnight and 1.30 am on Monday June 4. Harpreet Singh was driving his taxi through Sunshine shortly after mid- night when his car was rammed from behind and a second car pulled up abruptly in front of him. Four men with baseball bats got out of the car in front of him, and began smashing the driver-side window. “It was terrifying. They were smashing the car and hitting me with the bats also. I leaned to the left side (of the driver’s seat) to avoid the baseball
AUGUST 2012 PHTM
only six of the cities were drivers rated acceptable, leading the AA to con- clude: “The standard of driving and customer care was often appalling. Not one of 22 major cities on the continent provided a taxi service that could be described as ‘very good’.” According to the EuroTest survey, a third of drivers of the taxis wouldn’t accept credit cards. In Rotterdam, a driver swore loudly when the inspec- tor asked to pay with a credit card, braked suddenly to do a U-turn and drove back to the airport to find a cashpoint. Other drivers ignored speed limits and red lights, while one pulled out his mobile phone and sent a text while waiting at traffic lights. In Amsterdam, a second passenger was picked up unannounced which led to a detour that increased the journey by a third. The research cites other examples such as a driver in Rome, who lost his way twice between the station and an exhibition centre. He then reported- ly demanded €69 - €19 more than the journey should have cost. Meanwhile, a trip from the airport to the railway station in Madrid covered more than twice the mileage it should have. The most alarming findings were in Ljubljana where the driver rating was “very poor”, while the vehicle was “poor” and the route chosen also “poor”. Madrid and Barcelona provided the best quality vehicles. In con- trast, one of the taxis in Rotterdam had 400,000 kilometres (almost 250,000 miles) on the clock, as well as broken windows and holes in the seats. Edmund King, AA President, said: “Many people making city trips prefer taxis to the mystery of unfamiliar public transport. However the research showed a taxi journey can sometimes be just as daunting. Don’t get in a taxi if it looks unsafe: bald tyres are normally a telltale sign.” He added that most taxi trips passed without incident, but urged tourists to wear their seat belts.
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