Capital New York

Bloomberg Chaos commented on An industry group warns that taxi apps could kill the New York street hail

The history is entirely accurate. I know, I lived through it. The idea is bad, for all the reasons given. It is bad for one more reason : it's not safe. Having worked for a pre-arranged service many years ago, I can assure your readers that drivers with phone schedules to honor can get pretty impatient behind the wheel when they are threatened with lateness. At that point, the temptation is to speed or drive recklessly, in order to get to their fare on time. Also, if they are scanning their phones while driving, that's a distraction -- and distractions cause more than half of all car accidents nowadays. (A spokesperson for the Uber company says that drivers will be "instructed" not to consult their phones while driving. Does he really believe they'll be honoring his "instructions" when there's money to be made by ignoring them?) It's a no-brainer : this plan stinks. It's yet another example of people with no knowledge trying to trump people with both knowledge and experience. In other words -- a typical phenomenon of the Age of Bloomberg.

Posted on September 6th, 2012 12:52pm

Bloomberg Chaos commented on Quinn, now vital to the city's taxi overhaul, dodges questions about it

The complexities of this situation are impossible to explicate in less than 300 pages. While I ponder a more thorough response, let me just state what is obvious to many inside the industry -- both livery and yellow : the taxi plan is really a revenue plan; it allows the city to access cash money without having to raise taxes (on such people, for instance, as the rich). Its premises are faulty : what is envisioned could be accomplished without increased medallion sales, but just using the current fleet. This is the Bloomberg administration doing what it has done in so many other cases : crippling a viable local industry for its own one-shot revenue needs, rather than taxing wealthy New Yorkers, who are already the richest people in the history of the human race.

Posted on August 23rd, 2012 1:55pm

Bloomberg Chaos commented on

Posted on August 23rd, 2012 1:26pm