The City vs Cab Drivers? A Micro History 1.

The issue in 1984 was putting more taxis on the street for the Democratic convention. However, as long as she was at it, then Major Dianne Feinstein decided to reform the cab business as well.

The problem was addressed by the Police Commission which regulated cabs at the time. They assigned a young police lieutenant (whose name I forget) to do a thorough study of the taxi industry including in-depth interviews with cab drivers.

What I don't forget is the interview. It turned out that instead of talking to drivers individually, the L.T. chose to meet a group of us in a room. I was a newbie but the rest of the drivers had been around many a block. We totalled about 140 years of cab driving experience. We were confident that we could give the man many insights into how the taxi business really worked and how to improve it.

The L.T. popped suddenly into the room and started to tell us what would be in his report without asking us one single question. He informed us that during his research at SFO he'd spend over two hours observing the situation during a Tuesday afternoon in April.

I raised my hand and politely suggested that he had a few details wrong.

"Well," he interrupted shouting, "I disagree! And, if it comes to a fight, the cops'll beat the cabbies!"

I kid you not. That was the in-depth interview.

Surprisingly, the report agreed exactly with Feinstein's analysis of the situation: namely that cab drivers were poor in quality but there should be more of them. The L.T. was praised by the Police Commission and promoted to Commander of the Taraval Police Station a few years later. Last I heard he was doing well with a private law practice.

His report had no lasting effects what-so-ever on the taxi business but it leaves me with an observation and a question.

Cab drivers were considered neither part of the public nor the working class.

The situation was officially framed by the press as Cab Driver Income vs Public Good but you didn't have to read too far between the lines to see that what they actually meant was Greedy Cabbies vs Us.

For me, the most startling aspect of the farce (I was a newbie remember) was that a gaggle of liberal democratic politicians didn't see us as workers. They treated almost us like a criminal class. Or, as Chris Hayashi's predecessor Heidi Machen once put it, cab drivers were "either criminals or soon would be."

 In 1984, the city actually set up a cab stand in the Sunset and assigned a policeman to make sure that a cab driver stayed on the stand to take radio calls.

This conception of cab drivers as future-cons was brought home to me a few years later when "left-wing liberal" Supervisor Carol Ruth Silver herded a bunch of us (apparently chosen at random) into the Board of Supervisor's chamber. I'm not sure why we were there but these were some of the best and most experienced cab drivers that I knew. I think Silver intended to include "Taxicab Reform" in her re-election package.

She shouted and snarled at us like a Drill Sergeant, had us line up standing at attention and demanded that we show her our identification. When I started to ask her why we were there, she screamed at me to, "Shut Up!"

She took our A-cards and IDs into another room - apparently to photocopy them. When she returned she told us that we'd better shape up by the next year.

"I wouldn't worry about that," I told her.

"Why not?" she demanded, incredulous at my temerity in speaking to her.

"Because we're going to vote you out of office!" I said ... well ...  I think I lost it and yelled.

In any case, it shut her up. She walked out of the room staring at me with hostility and confusion. It might never before have occurred to her that we were capable of reading a ballot much less voting.

She did lose the election but there probably were issues other than my vengeance involved.

What I take from this incident is the image of a woman who had been jailed in 1961 for fighting for the rights of Afro-Americans in the segregated South talking to us exactly like a bigot might have talked to a "N......" in the South of that same period.


Why didn't the L.T. actually interview us?

I mean,  he didn't make that decision by himself. Not this guy. His supervisors, the Police Commission, maybe Feinstein herself dictated his behavior. But why?

They'd already gone to considerable expense, they already had the cab drivers available, why not interview us? Why not try to understand the business? Why not have a real reform? Feinstein could've taken credit for it. Why not do it?

I've been pondering this question for a long time and the only answer I can come up with is that Feinstein thought that her ideas about the taxi business were THE TRUTH.

Another way of putting it, would be to say that Feinstein, and the other city officials, thought that cab drivers were either too stupid to understand their own business or that the business was so simple that any "educated person" could understand it, probably both.

This conception of "cabbies" as a semi-literate, future-criminal class would dominate city politics for the next twenty years.

Thoughts on the Protest

If nothing else yesterday's protest was the biggest in my 27 years of cab driving, topping even the famous anti-Feinstein demonstration of 1984. It was truly awesome with honking taxis circling the block around City Hall for at least 4 hours.

• The 1984 rally took place just before the Democratic convention that year and probably cost Diane Feinstein the chance to be the first woman to run as a Vice Presidential candidate.
• Nonetheless Feinstein won the argument, put more cabs on the street (the issue of that day) and went on to become a very powerful U.S. Senator.

• Lesson - honking horns don't necessarily make policy.

The drivers made their point - they don't like electronic waybills and they don't want to pay credit card charges. In addition, there were about a dozen other things that the hundred or so drivers who spoke at the MTA Board meeting either liked or didn't like - including some of which (selling cabs at open auctions or putting an end to the sales program) contradicted each other. 

• Most of the drivers were, as advertised, the ones (mostly non-medallion holders) you never see at meetings.
• But there were also a fair number of medallion holders including friends from the SFCDA.

Misplaced aggression?

Many of the drivers complained about being forced to open bank accounts by companies like Yellow and Luxor; or being forced to give their social security numbers to open these accounts; or being hit by transaction charges; or being threatened if they tried to use Square or other Apps. If so, it should have been the companies that the drivers were protesting - not Taxi Services. To clarify:

• A driver does not have to use the back-seat terminal.
• He or she is entitled to use Square or any other App to process the credit card receipts.
• A driver should never pay more than 5% including all banking fees.
• If the drivers are being overcharged or threatened by a company they should contact Taxi Services.

At the Board Meeting I rhetorically asked, "If Green Cab can afford to pay their drivers credit card receipts why can't Yellow or Luxor Cab?"

• Actually my feeling are stronger than that.
• If Yellow and Luxor can't do anything without cheating their drivers, why should they get any break at all?
• To put it crudely: If they aren't satisfied with saving a $ million a year - screw 'em. They should continue picking up the tab.

Now for the most popular parts of my post.

I still think the back-seat terminals might work if installed properly and that they should be given a chance to prove or disprove their value.

• http://phantomcabdriverphites.blogspot.com/2011/04/tip-prompting-will-it-make-drivers-more.html
• http://phantomcabdriverphites.blogspot.com/2011/04/back-seat-terminals-demonstrated.html
• http://phantomcabdriverphites.blogspot.com/2011/04/back-seat-vs-front-seat-tipping.html

Higher Math or Cutting Off Your Nose to Spite Your Face.

• One driver said that the 5% cost him $4.00 on a $24.00 ride. "It cost me my tip," he said. Actually, dude, what you lost at 5% is $1.20.
• The suddenly omnipresent Dean Clark claimed that the 5% would cost him $300 a month.
• Have either one of these guys calculated how much NOT taking credit cards would cost them every month?
• I mean, two $10 rides a day should easily cover the 5% charge.

A suggestion.

Since you guys started complaining and refusing to take credit cards, I've been getting the best tips I've ever had in my life. I think of you as my living tip prompters.

When a customer gets in and nervously asks, "Do you take credit cards?" I smilingly say, "Of course I take credit cards - my customers always come first."

I repeat: the best tips I've ever had in my life. And, after the protests yesterday, they'll only get better.

Try a little showmanship. Smile through the pain.

A Short History of San Francisco's Taxi Crisis: Bigoty & Cabbies, Part 2

When Mayor Newsom discovered that he was $600 million in debt, one of the first things he DID NOT DO was tell the people of San Francisco that he was going to cut back on their bus service. Instead he came out with his plan to "improve" taxi service by taking taxis away from cab drivers, auctioning them off and keeping the money for the city.

People in San Francisco take ten times more buses than cabs. In short, the issue was and is a red herring, a pump fake, a sound bite designed to take the public's mind away the fact that they are going to be waiting longer for buses.

Mayors from Dianne Feinstein on have used taxicabs for similar ploys, but Newsom is the first mayor to claim that he could improve taxi service by attacking San Francisco's cab drivers.

His justifications rest on a series of half truths coupled with assumptions that are essentially racist. But first - the facts, just the facts.

San Francisco has a unique cab system.

• Taxi medallions are not for sale. They are leased to drivers on a first come first serve basis.
• There is a waiting list to get a medallion that is currently 3,000 applicants long.
• The wait for a medallion is about 15 years.
• The medallion goes back to the city when a medallion holder either stops driving or dies.

Now some half truths followed by facts.

Half truth: Auctioning off cabs would give more taxi drivers a chance to own one.

• Fact: Almost 1,400 out of 1,500 of San Francisco's taxicab medallions are owned by individual drivers. About 1 driver in 5 owns a medallion. In other words 90% of the taxis are owned by individual drivers. This is by far the highest percentage in the country.
• Fact: In New York City by comparison, 5,525 out of 13,107 are owned by individual drivers. This works out to 42% of the medallions - less than half the percentage in San Francisco.
• Fact: Johnny Marks of www.nycabbie.com/ writes: "That % (the 42%) sounds a little high, what with the cost of the city license (medallion) presently going for $750,000.00 which does not include the cost of the cab itself."
• Fact: According to the Asian Law Caucus only 1 driver in 20 can afford to buy a taxi in NYC.
• Probability: Most of the cabs in NYC are actually owned by people financing the cab drivers, not the drivers themselves.

Half truth: According to Mayor Newsom's man at the MTA, Director Malcom Heinicke, taxi medallions are "essentially free."

• Fact: The medallions are not dropped from the sky or won in a lottery.
• Fact: A driver puts in an average of 15 years of hard labor to get the medallion and pays about $200,000 in rental fees. Therefore, the medallion is "earned" not free.

Half truth: Aging medallion holders are not working and because of this the service is bad.

• Fact: About 20% of the medallion holders are indeed too old to drive. This does not, however, mean that the cabs are sitting idle. Ordinary drivers work the cabs when the medallion holder doesn't. Almost every cab in the fleet is in operation 20 hours a day, seven days a week.

Doublethink: According to Newsom, "If drivers had more of a stake in their industry ... that could translate into better service for the customers."

• Opinion: I don't see how somebody would have "more of a stake" by getting a cab in an auction than working 15 years to own one.
• Fact: If you own the medallion you own the medallion. It doesn't matter how you got it. The stake in the industry is the same.

There are subtexts to Newsom's arguments that basically racist. He's morphing the stereotypes formally associated with blacks. What's he's saying in other words is:

• The service is bad because the drivers are lazy.
• We're paying them too much money so they aren't working.
• If we pay them less (put them in debt to pay for the auction price) they'll work harder.

Newsom has no idea if the cab service is good or not. (The average waiting time in front of his most famous restaurant, The Balboa Cafe, is about 15 seconds.) But Newsom does know that he can always gain political points by appealing to people's prejudices and bashing "cabbies."

• The truth is that the medallion system has created a class of professional drivers. The promise of being able to own a medallion someday keeps experienced drivers in the business.
• Fact: San Francisco has the most knowledgeable cab drivers in the USA.
• Fact: Replacing San Francisco's veteran drivers with deep-pocket newbies would most certainly make the service much worse.

The idea that medallion holders aren't working because they make too much money is absurd.

• At one public hearing, a woman claimed that medallion holders weren't working because they were home eating pizzas. Did she mean to say that they were home eating watermelons?
• Facts: Medallion holders average about $45,000 per year. The average salary in San Francisco is $65,000. Medallion holders get paid $2,000 a month to lease out their cabs. Studio apartments start at $1,500 per month. Most cab drivers can't afford not to work.

According to a source who wishes to remain anonymous, Newsom came up with a plan when he was a city supervisor to solve the homeless problem by detoxing homeless people and having them drive taxicabs.

Newsom's callous disregard for the fate of the drivers is certainly consistent with this attitude. In his world, cab drivers are lowlifes and undesirables. They are not "one of us," not real San Franciscans. If the drivers are too old, you just take the cabs away and let them fend for themselves. If they waited 15 years and paid $200,000 in fees with the idea that they were going to own something at the end of it, that's their problem.

This is the way you treat a member of an underclass, not a fellow human being.

When these stupid, lazy cab drivers mounted a series of protests against his plan, Mayor Newsom had his man Heinicke take it off the table.

This was in March 2009. But that wasn't the end of the matter. Only the beginning.