Lessons on New York City Taxis
I spent this past weekend with friends doing the “tourist experience” down in New York City, seeing many of the major landmarks in Manhattan. Since time was short, we tried to do as much as possible, which necessitated using a cab a few more times than I would have liked. It had been a while since I had used a NYC cab, and so I ended up learning a few things about NYC cabs along the way.
Hail Only Medallion Cabs
I was briefly down at a rail station and was surprised to be aggressively called after by waiting taxis that assumed I was a tourist looking for a cab. What made me uncomfortable, though, was that while I actually did want a taxi, several of these taxis calling me were not the yellow “medallion” taxicabs but rather cars in less “traditional” looking colors. I awkwardly avoided them and headed towards a yellow taxi, despite their yelling after me.
Turns out I made the right call - only the Medallion yellow cabs are licensed to pick up hails off the street. The yellow Medallion cabs are tightly regulated by the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission, while non-yellow cabs in Manhattan are operating illegally when they pick up hails off the street. This isn’t just a legal “technicality” — a quick search on Google turned up plenty of stories of people being taken advantage by these non-Medallion cabs.
Maximum Number of Passengers
There seem to be two dominant types of Medallion taxicabs in Manhattan, one of them being the SUV-like Ford Escape. One night, my group had about five people in it, and we were looking to take a cab in Midtown. We assumed that since we had five people, we were better off looking for one of the SUV cabs, figuring that we would be able to all fit in one cab.
When we hailed one of these cabs and told him that we had five people, he told us that the rules said he could only carry four, despite the size of the car. This was somewhat surprising in itself, but what was more surprising was what he did next — he offered to take the five of us if we offered him ten dollars cash to compensate him for breaking the rules. My friends really needed to go, so they negotiated with him, trying to get him down to two or three dollars, but ultimately settled on five dollars extra. I was a little uncomfortable with this whole situation, but went along with it.
Was he scamming us? Turns out he was not lying about the maximum capacity. According to the Taxi and Limousine Commission’s website, most cabs are only licensed to carry four passengers. So keep in mind that magic number, as well as the fact that some cabbies are apparently quite willing to break this rule.
Paying By Credit
Since last winter, New York City taxi cabs are supposed to be able to accept credit card payments using the computer system in the back of taxi cabs. I was very interested in trying this out, especially given a New York Times blog post from December about difficulties their reporters had found in trying to get cabbies to accept credit card payments. Apparently, the idea of credit card payments was not particularly popular with cab drivers.
Did we run into any problems? Not at all. Paying with credit went very smoothly each time — simply slide the card in the terminal in the back seat, and then enter the tip amount on the screen. No complaints or problems from the cab driver, and I got a nice record of how much we spent on taxis.
Suggestion - Always get a Receipt
The New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission runs a great website with a very helpful Frequently Asked Questions page. One suggestion that I didn’t know about but will keep in mind for the future is that it is important to always get the receipt after the trip, regardless of how you pay. Why? The receipt contains the medallion number of the cab, and so in addition to providing you a record of the amount you spent on the cab ride, you also get a way to trace back the cab you took should you need to file a complaint or seek a lost item.
That’s excellent advice, since even careful people can every now and then make a mistake with a suitcase or a cell phone. Turns out that just last night, Barack Obama’s campaign trip director left behind a suitcase in a cab — a suitcase which unfortunately contained their birthday present for Senator Obama! They spent all day trying to find it, with no luck.
Anyway, if you’re interested in more information about New York City taxi’s, I suggest you look at the TLC’s web page, including their passenger bill of rights.
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