Drivers, don’t bet on getting the fare for bad driving.

Ok guys,

I know that nothing in the world is going to stop you from making money, but having a savvy customer can definitely ruin your day. I know that with the recient addition of more Taxicab drivers here in Vegas, it has become much harder not to do the wrong thing and do more of the illegal stuf like long hauling, high flagging, front loading, speeding (15 mph or more above the limit), ignoring stop lights and signs, and so on… But I also know that if you get a Vegas savvy customer, they can press the issue and not pay you. And so to be friendly, I thought I’d share this story with you.

I know you may not believe this, but I reciently spoke to a yellow driver that this had actually happened to. This driver took his customer on a trip to the Tropicana, which by the end of the trip the meter had added up to $35, but because the driver did not explain why he planned his highway route prior to going through the airport tunnel and taking the highway, the customer said they weren’t going the pay the fair. He freely admitted to me that instead of just driving off and taking it a hit on his money making scheme, he decided to make issue and told me that he began a racially colorized tyrate which only ended when the customer began calling for hotel security which forced him into driving off. Well as a result, the Taxicab Authority was called out and after they had determined from the security cameras who the driver was, he was called back to his company and unceremoniously given the infamous $250 taxicab citation.

Well, if I was his customer, I probably would have said that I would not pay him either, but I would have thought that a customer needed to pay what was reasonable in fare to the driver. “You’ve got to be kidding,” I said, “they made you pay the entire fare too. I thought the customer always had to pay something.” “The TA officer told me that all my customer had to do was sign an affadavid,” he said.

I really couldn’t believe what I’d heard, and I actually thought that he was out right lying to me about being made to pay all of the fare. “The customer does not have to pay any of the fare? This can’t be true,” I thought. So, I called the Taxi Authority, and, to my surprise, the officer who answered said, “If I issue a ticket to a cab driver (where I find that the driver is clearly guilty of the citation), the driver will be required to pay the passenger’s fare as well.”

So what’s the point? No, I’m not going to say that you should stop your long hauling or dangerous driving ways. All that I’m saying as friendly as I can here is that if you do the wrong thing and the customer wont pay the fare, you’re probably much better off just taking the hit and not make a big issue over a small loss. Making matters worst when your in the wrong will definately not help you make any more money.

Last year in my driver’s safety class, which comes with our permit renewal, a Taxicab Authority Officer said, “If you have an legitimate reason for taking the tunnel to the highway (and I can verify this on my radio), you’ve informed your customer that it will be a longer and more expensive ride, and they are in agreement with you doing this, then I don’t have a problem at all with you taking your customer through the airport tunnel to the highway. But drivers, long hauling is illegal! If I catch you doing it, you’ll be given a $250 citation.”

So since then, I’ve always attempted to explain the route each time I start the meter. I do this not just to ward off a possible complaint issue, but also to help give the customer that warm fuzzy feeling which usually allows me an opportunity to give them that let’s double the fare, tip winning performance. And it’s because I work much harder on a bad book day at charming the customers, that I generally tend to do a much better percentage in side money than I do on a busy day.

If I were to advise you to do anything, it would be to talk to your customers, explain to them why you’re planning to do a long haul before doing it, and only do a long haul if the customer is in agreement, because they truly don’t have to pay you at the end, if you don’t have their advance blessing on you’re intended longer route.

You can check on this for yourself with the TA, if you don’t believe me. The TA’s phone number is on your permit.

The following blog entry is a customer rant dated from 2003, but from what I’m hearing that with the recent addition of more drivers on the road this is happening more often than not:

http://forums.dealofday.com/showthread.php?t=139361

I’ve had this happen to me while on a layover in Vegas on my way to Canada. The cabbie took us the long way to our hotel. Then griped me out for not tipping him enough! Never tell a cabbie you have never been in Las Vegas before. Ripoff artists!

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Don’t bet on getting a fair ride in Las Vegas cabs

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Margaret Mentecki became suspicious when a cab ride from the airport to her off-Strip hotel took longer than in past visits.

When the cab finally arrived at the hotel-casino, the 66-year-old retiree’s fare was $43.10, about twice what it had cost on other trips.

“I was real mad, but I paid him and told the guy that I was calling his boss,” she said.

Mentecki went a step further and filed a complaint with the Nevada Taxicab Authority. The cabdriver eventualy was fined $50 for turning a 7½-mile trip into a more than 15-mile run-around.

The case is just one of 174 in which Las Vegas cabdrivers were caught ripping off tourists last year by taking them on indirect routes to boost the cost of a ride, according to Taxicab Authority records.

The illegal scheme, called long-hauling, was detected in only a tiny fraction of the nearly 23 million taxi rides given by Clark County’s 4,800 cabbies last year.

But those statistics are misleading, according to interviews with cabdrivers and law enforcement officials.

They say the numbers don’t reveal the widespread nature of long-hauling. The citations issued by the Taxicab Authority represent only the instances in which the agency’s officers personally observed the crime during limited enforcement operations or cases in which tourists filed complaints.

“These are just the tip of the iceberg,” Taxicab Authority Administrator Yvette Moore said.

Overall, cabbies collectet about $230 million in fares last year, up more than 10% from 2002.

Although no study has been conducted to determine how much of that money was earned illegally through long-hauling, state regulators say the practice probably results in the bilking of untold millions of dollars from unsuspecting tourists each year.

Long-hauling citations in 2003 indicate that egregious cases, such as the cabdriver who victimized Mentecki by doubling a $22 cab fare, were rare. Far more common was the practice of long-hauling passengers over shorter distances, typically leading to an extra $3 to $10 in fare each time.

Records show that the most common long-hauling scheme occurs between McCarran International Airport and the Strip. Taxis travel the Interstate 215 tunnel beneath the McCarran Airport, which lengthens trips into the city.

The hundreds of pages of long-hauling reports for last year, and recent interviews with victimized tourists and with cabbies in the moments after they were caught, offer a glimpse of the practice.

Earlier this month, Taxicab Authority officers pulled over Checker cabdriver Borislav Glavas and ordered him out of his taxi.

Officers confirmed Glavas was long-hauling by interviewing the tourists inside his cab. Upon learning Glavas was taking them on an indirect route to the Rio hotel-casino, the two passengers inside were furious.

“I hate getting ripped off,” Carol Brosnan of Long Island, N.Y., said. “I told him I wanted to go the cheapest way. I’m glad they caught him because I never would have known.”

Glavas did not attempt to dispute his guilt.

“It’s easier to make money if I go this way,” the 33-year-old cabby said. Glavas admitted to using the scheme daily for the 5-½ years he has been driving a cab, but said this was his first citation.

Cabdrivers say the financial windfall of long-hauling outweighs the minimal risk of getting caught and having to pay a fine that can range from $50 to $200.

“A lot of us do it,” said Mahan Washington, a 29-year-old cabby who admitted to scamming passengers daily. “It’s adding about five more bucks to your fare.”

Washington said he has never been cited for long-hauling, despite doing it for the year-and-a-half he has been driving a cab.

Many of the cabbies also were combative with police, according to the reports and interviews.

“Some of them tell us they’re the ones driving, they can go whichever way they want to, which isn’t true,” said Sgt. Rick Piert, a supervisor at the airport. “They’ll spit and cuss and yell. And then they’ll get a ticket.”

In Nevada, cabbies must be caught long-hauling five times in 12 months to lose their cab permit. No driver lost a permit that way in 2003, according to the records. When caught long-hauling, some cabbies shift the blame.

“A lot of them blame it on the company,” said Ken Smith, the Taxicab Authority’s chief of enforcement.

Bill Shranko, director of operations for Yellow-Checker-Star Cab, said the company disciplines drivers for long-hauling, whenever they learn of it from customers.

But there is no mechanism to notify the cab companies that a driver has been cited.

Moore said her understaffed agency can ferret out only a negligible number of the long-haulers. Only nine Taxicab Authority officers are assigned to the airport.

“We prioritize cases where cabbies are rude, or if people say the cabby was drunk,” or where they say their life was in danger, Moore said. “We only have so much time to conduct long-haul stings. … and the only way to really catch them all would be to have an army and stop all the cabbies.”

She stressed that the vast majority of cabbies regulated by the authority are conscientious, law-abiding and hardworking.

“But this industry, just like others, draws unscrupulous people.”

My Current Shift at Checker

As of today I work from 0630 to 1815, that 6:30 a.m. to 6:15 p.m. Thursday to Monday. This is call a madatory 12 hour shift. I have an unrestrected computer cab. This means that I can pickup at the airport, strip and downtown where the restricted cabs can not, and I’m dispatched via a computer. Most shifts are 12 hours, but many shifts at YCS are such that the driver is not required to work more than 10 hours as stipulated by the union contract. The current contract was negotiated through the ITPEU and can be contacted at LasVegasITPE@aol.com. They also have a web site at: http://www.itpeu.org/

Have fun and be safe. Mark