Best Way To Punish Cabbies That Won’t Drive To Brooklyn? Call 311
We’ve all heard it: The exasperated sigh that issues from a cabbie’s mouth when you say those words, “Um, I’m going to Brooklyn.” Our fair borough may as well be Mordor. But sometimes that sigh is a straight up refusal that can escalate into a heated argument. Well, no longer-ish. There is a solution.
On Friday, Gothamist published a very helpful story on the effectiveness of using 311 to punish taciturn cabbies.
According to their story, Crown Heights resident Jim Search hailed a cab, entered said cab and asked to be taken home. The cabbie refused. So, Mr. Search stood his ground, called 311 and while sitting in the cab (the bawls on this guy!) lodged a complaint against the driver in question by providing the car’s medallion number, the driver’s name and the intersection where he hailed the cab. A few weeks later, Search received a call from the TLC requesting that he testify over the phone and another few weeks after that he was notified that the cabbie was fined $1,650 and had four points added to his license. And that was just for strike one.
Gothamist reports that a second strike means another fine and a 30-day suspension and that a third strike will lead to a permanently revoked license. Ouch.
In all, it’s good to know that there’s something that Bridge-and-Tunnel Brooklynites can do in the fight against what we’ll very loosely call second class citizenship.
Now, if we could only tell the difference between a yellow cab and outer-borough cab in the dark…
Follow Nikita Richardson on Twitter @nikitarbk