All cabs refusing to go to Brooklyn at night

It's quite humorous to read a bunch of yuppies get all tough on a forum against somebody that is barely getting by financially. Oh, you are going to call 311. You are so macho.

I am going to show those cabbies that I am smarter than them, I am going to jump in the cab before telling them where I am going. I am so intelligent. How dare they try and make a living! It's the law. IT'S MY RIGHT. Death, taxes, and a cab to Brooklyn.

I guess that taxis back home in the midwest were more accommodating.

BTW - I should point out, I wasn't going to Flushing - I was going to Long Island City...basically 5 blocks past the end of the bridge.

Although, a cabbie shouldn't refuse to take folks to Flushing, but the whole 59th St & 1st vs. "just over the bridge" is kinda lost on this particular issue.

Old Brooklyn Issue?

Back when I worked in Harlem (about 10 years ago), they never wanted to go there either.

...I would try to catch a cab downtown, and have to pull the same routine.

Pulling my magazine from bookbag, and telling him I was going to read it until he got to the destination always worked.

[I suspect he believed that he would have to drag me out of the cab, and that would not hesitate to involve the police.]

....but in the several instances I'm remembering, it never went that far, and I never had to say all that. In each instance, the driver just gave me an ugly look in the rear view mirror and hauled my ass to Harlem.

I think this issue has been around for as long as there have been cabs, and as long as folks have wanted to go to locations that cabbies do not like

....when did the first cab serve NYC? 1890s?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_New_York_City
Late 1890s - The Electric Era

Electrobat electric car.The first taxicab company in New York City was the Electric Carriage and Wagon Company, which began running 12 electric hansom cabs in July 1897.[3] The company ran until 1898 with up to 62 cabs operating until it was reformed by its financiers to form the Electric Vehicle Company.[4] The company then built the Electrobat electric car, and had up to 100 taxicabs running in total by 1899. 1899 also saw a number of notable firsts for the Electric Vehicle Company. On 20 May, 1899, Jacob German, driving an electric taxicab received the first speeding ticket in the United States.[5] Later that year, on 13 September, Henry Bliss became the first victim of an automotive accident in the United States when he was hit by an electric taxicab as he was helping a friend from a streetcar.[6]

By the early 1900s the Electric Vehicle company was running up to 1,000 electric taxicabs on the streets of New York City until, in January, 1907, a fire destroyed 300 of these vehicles which, in conjunction with the Panic of 1907 caused the company to collapse.

Retag wrote: It's quite humorous to read a bunch of yuppies get all tough on a forum against somebody that is barely getting by financially. Oh, you are going to call 311. You are so macho.

I am going to show those cabbies that I am smarter than them, I am going to jump in the cab before telling them where I am going. I am so intelligent. How dare they try and make a living! It's the law. IT'S MY RIGHT. Death, taxes, and a cab to Brooklyn.

I guess that taxis back home in the midwest were more accommodating.

while your comically xenophobic post is mildly entertaining, i feel that if a person refuses to perform their job as required by law then that person does not deserve that job. this applies to cab drivers, cops, bankers, whatever...

please feel free to sit around and wish that the only people who would choose to live in new york are those who have been there for generations, that will at least keep you busy while the ever-changing world evolves around you.

I was in Boerum Hill one Saturday afternoon a few months ago with my elderly mother trying to get to the North Slope to a destination literally on the same road and less than a mile away. After failing for quite some time to flag a cab going further into Brooklyn, we crossed the street and one stopped right away. Figuring that there would be problems (since problems catching cabs in Brooklyn to go elsewhere in Brooklyn is not a new phenomenon), we both got in the cab first, shut the door and then told the cabbie where we wanted to go (on the same street, less than a mile away, but in the opposite direction).

The cabbie refused to take us. I told him just to make the block and we would be there in no time. He still refused. I then reminded him that he was legally obligated to take me ANYWHERE I wanted to go within the 5 boroughs, to which he responded: that's only in Manhattan. By this time, and fuming, a recorded his information, advised him that I would be reporting him and asked if he wouldn't reconsider. He did not and he refused to drive, so we got out.

I did report the cabbie to 311 and promptly received confirmation of my report from the TLC. I am awaiting my hearing with the cabbie and fully intend on letting him know that what he did was NOT ok. I feel that these cabbies shouldn't be let off the hook so easily and that yes, people must report incidences such as these to 311 with at least the hope that situations like these won't be repeated.

I understand cabbie's arguments about being stiffed on fares or being robbed and mistreated by those too drunk or belligerent, but when I get into your cab with my elderly mother, I fully expect that you will understand that I'm not going to rob you. Have some decency.