Cab Driving in China 2012: Part 2

As you can see from the photo, cab driving in Guangzhou China is dangerous.  As to how dangerous is hard to verify. All I came across on the internet was a scholarly work on motorcycle taxi robberies and the best answer to a strange question.







The only people who have guns in China are the military so the shields are designed only to stop assaults or knife attacks and the plexiglas is not continuous.


In any case, it's hard to get statistics on the subject. The best general reference to violence against cab drivers that I've come across remains Charles Rathbone's Taxi Library and he doesn't know much about China either.

The Chinese drivers I've talked with hadn't been robbed and most work under various kinds of leasing arrangements. The quality of their lives appears to be similar to that of non-medallion holding drivers in San Francisco. In other words, they can eat out but not at starred restaurants.

Cameras in Taxis

While I was in mainland China I kept thinking that Barry Korengold, who is leading the fight for privacy rights in cabs, would enjoy driving there. Than I got to Hong Kong. And, there it was - the eye in the taxi. My Cantonese translator was sleeping so I was unable to find out whether or not the machines recorded audio.

Then again - cabs might be only place in China where the conversations of travelers are not recorded.

It appears that, instead of China becoming more democratic, the US government is becoming more like China's.

Maybe Barry is right. Maybe the inside of a taxi is the last bastion of freedom.


Transit Cards


Cabs in China do not take credit cards. In fact, many places in China don't take credit cards because some Chinese are very good at forging them. Bank or ATM cards are much more widely accepted.

Taxis in Guangzhou accept transit cards which are also used for buses and the subway. Cab drivers pay no fees for their use.

Is such a thing possible here?

Cab Driving in China 2012: Part 1

This year I have no tales of crazy taxi rides  like I've had in the past. Maybe it has to do with traveling in Guangzho and Shenzhen in Canton instead of wilder parts of China.

Then again, things change so fast in this country that it's hard to keep up. In 2006, during my initial visit, everybody was lining up to buy their first cell phones.

Today, mobile phones are ubiquitous and used exactly like they are in the USA: in subways, at meals and, of course, driving. This indicates that technology can indeed influence behavior more than culture does.

Why shouldn't driving habits change as fast as everything else?

A few years ago, in both Beijing (an urban jungle with impossible traffic) and

Inner Mongolia (which is cowboy country with the largest grassland in the world);

Drivers making left turns from a side street to a two-way main street would speed up and whip the turn so that they would enter facing the oncoming traffic. Then, they would gradually work their way over to the right side of the street.

Xilinhaote, one of Inner Mongolia's few large cities, has very wide streets with wide sidewalks.

Cab drivers there don't like stop lights very much and tend to dive up on the sidewalks to go around them. Well trained pedestrians respectfully scatter like pigeons. (These drivers always caught me by surprise with this move so I never got off a shot.)

There are indications, however, that driving traditions in China are changing.

More and more the main streets like this one in Guangzhou have fences down the middle that make exciting and entertaining maneuvers like the ones I've described above impossible. These barriers also keep pedestrians from jay-walking.

 

Drivers attitudes may also be evolving. On several occasions this trip I actually witnessed cars giving people on foot the right-of-way. The only time I saw this happen in 2006 or 2007 was when my taxi stopped at a safety zone to let a pregnant women with three little kids amble quickly across the street.

I'm Baaaaack!

No - I didn't stop writing. I've been in Guangzhou for a month and didn't think that I'd need to inform my readers about the trip because I thought I'd be able to post while in China like I did in 2010.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find my blog online over there. I could find John Han's but not my own. The local powers apparently don't like the image of cab drivers fighting back. Articles on the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement don't exit on the Chinese internet so why should my blog?

I'll be back posting soon and, from what I'm hearing, I should have a great deal about which to write.

In the meantime, you might want to reflect on the above photo. It's what can happen when a twit decides to run errands after an eleven hour flight from Hong Kong. The good news is - no injuries.

Two More Plans

Charles Rathbone of Luxor Cab came up with another outline for a plan.

He started out by stating that the Medallion Sales Pilot Program has been an unqualified success. He claimed:

• It has benefited both sellers and buyers.
• It has given drivers on the waiting list two options instead of one: they can now buy or wait for a medallion to become available.

Rathbone wants to see;

 A Permanent Medallion Sales Problem. 

1. All medallion holders would be able to sell.

     a. Purchasers would initially come from the waiting list.

     b. At some point all drivers with five years of experience would become qualified to buy.

2. Several hundred medallions would be given to drivers on the waiting list.

     a. Charles envisions about 75 medallion a year being released.

     b. The list would eventually end.

     

3. The MTA would lease a certain number of "non-medallion permits" to "full-service color schemes."

     a. Rathbone tried very hard to avoid using the phrase but they would be "fleet taxis."

     b. He would probably define a "full-service color scheme" as Luxor, Yellow and Desoto cabs.

     c. The fleet taxis would be leased for periods of three or so years.

     d. The leases could be withdrawn if it was determined that there were too many cabs.

Service and Fairness ...

... is the the title that Rua Graffis, long time driver and United Taxicab Workers perpetrator, gave to her  conception of the future.

Graffis's plan is 11 pages of single-spaced type long and could only be briefly summarized during the TAC discussion. I'd like to do it more justice here but I'm going to China next week and need all my spare time to improve my primitive language skills.

So all I can do is list some main ideas and ask some question.

By the way, this points out another problem with the TAC. The council simply does not have the time delve deeply into complicated ideas and issues.

Rua's Plan.


There would be several different types of medallions.

1. 100 corporate Ramp Medallions
2. 800 Master (K) Medallions driven by gates and gas drivers.
3. 800 Master (K) Medallions driven by Medallion holders.
4. 186 Transferable Medallions.
5. Pre-K = 300 now but the category would gradually disappear as the holders died off and their medallions went to make up part of ...
6. 2000 Single Operator Medallions (returned K's).

Medallions would no longer be sold and all drivers from the various categories would pay amounts ranging from $750 per year to $6,000 per year into a Drivers fund.

The fund would be used for the retirement of all cab drivers.

What strikes me are the numbers. Potentially there could be almost 4,000 cabs on the street at the same time. This many taxis could turn a Friday night in October into a February Sunday morning. Coming from a woman who began her political career fighting against Mayor Diane Feinstein's attempt to add 289 cabs for the 1984 Democratic Convention, this raises nothing but question marks in my mind.

Ms. Graffis said that she wasn't good at numbers and at the end of her essay wrote, "Great care must be taken only to add medallions when there is a documented need. This is of particular concern since ..." the MTA which "... controls the number of cabs ... seeks money from the industry for its budget."

Rua wants the money that would go to loan companies to instead to into the Driver's Fund and retirement programs; and the Single Operator Permits would theoretically be driven only when it's busy. However,  the sheer volume of taxis that Rua envisions throws out any kind of rational thought for me. Except for New Year's Eve, these aren't figures that belong in San Francisco.

Or, maybe she simply expects all the K medallions to eventually become Single operator Medallions. It's hard to say.

Maybe this conundrum will be cleared up with a careful reading of her monograph. I'll tackle it on the return flight. Unless you were at the meeting, I'm not sure where you can get ahold of a copy. You  might be able to get more information by clicking on this UTW link.

TAC: Pushing for a Final Plan

This photo was taken toward the end of the 1-9-12 Taxi advisory Council meeting. Chris Sweis, Athan Rebelos, Richard Hybels, Rua Graffis and Tim Lapp are seen (sort of) tying to clarify a methodology for deciding how to organize the various plans (or parts of plans) for a making the Pilot Plan (or parts thereof) permanent - or not - so that the TAC could vote on the various concepts.

To be fair, this is a real problem. Director of Transportation Ed Reiskin has apparently asked TAC Chair Chris Sweis to come up with a permanent plan soon. Deputy Director of Taxi Services Chris Hayashi also told the MTA Board that she could present them with a plan in February.

BUT ... The last three or four meeting of the TAC have been taken up largely with new plans - mostly conflicting with each other - on how to structure the future of San Francisco's taxi industry.

I have a some thoughts on the subject.

1. I think it's better to the job right then to do it fast.

2. I do not think that the TAC is equipped to sort through the various ideas to find a solution. Because of the all the rules that the council has follow, it simply takes too long for them to deal with an issue. In a normal meeting they'll cover one or two subjects. The question of the future of the cab business is open ended and multifaceted.

3. The best method would be to have Ms. Hayashi use her famous white boards to deal with this subject at a couple or more Town Hall Meetings. She should be able to bring order out of chaos (as she has done so often in the past) and draw up a coherent plan.  The plan would then go to TAC for a final discussion and vote.

TAC to Make Final Recommendations for Permanent Pilot Plan?

The question mark is in the title because the Taxi Advisory Council keeps threatening to make final recommendations and never quite seems to do so. In other words, I'll believe it when I see it.

The picture is of me when I first started taxi driving and was even hotter than I am now - if less friendly.


In honor of TAC's attempt at finality, I'm putting some of the proposals on the blog in posts below this one. (Please excuse the formatting.)

For comparison I'm linking to the Medallion Reform Proposal by the San Francisco Cab Drivers Association which I originally published on April 4, 2011.

I'm also linking to my own An Outline for Making the Pilot Plan Permanent which I published on December 18, 2011.

To make note of a few other proposals click below.

Mark Gruberg of the United Taxicab Workers Proposal

Sorry for the shadow on this shot. It's not symbolic. I don't mean to imply that Mark has a doppleganger or evil twin. Simply didn't have a diffuser on the flash.

For me, the most interesting thing about Mark's proposal is that he changed his position from the days when we were putting the Pilot Plan together. He was against any medallion sales at the time and even sued the MTA over the issue. But he lost and has shown rare common sense in accepting the reality of medallion sales and using it a jumping off point for a fresh look at the industry.

His plan is the most carefully worked out and thorough of the proposals that I've seen. It certainly has the longest title.

To read A Proposed Approach to Formulating

A Permanent Medallion System for San Francisco click below