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Owners of New York City's taxi "medallions" filed a lawsuit (PDF) against city regulators today, saying their business has been devastated by the decision to allow companies like Uber to compete using "E-hail" services.
A medallion is required to operate a New York City yellow taxicab, the only type of vehicle allowed to accept passengers who hail cabs on the street. Until recently, those medallions could sell for over $1 million. Companies like White & Blue Group, one of the plaintiffs in the case, managed fleets of licensed taxicabs by leasing out the medallions.
According to the suit, White & Blue Group, which manages the largest fleet of leased taxicabs in New York, "has seen its monthly leasing income drop as much as 50% in the past year," and has been forced to idle as much as 20 percent of its fleet each day. The complaint was filed today and reported earlier by Reuters.
Extortionists crying about losing money is about the saddest sight in the world.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 20 2015, @04:49AM
I don't think the "protection from robbers" ever was much of a factor, if you can procure a big yellow car - how hard would it be to forge a medallion? And, robbers in NYC have many many other ways to get at people besides tricking them into a cab.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by NCommander on Friday November 20 2015, @05:15AM
To be fair: Taxis have to have the medallion physically present on the hood, have their cab numbers visibly mounted on the roof and doors, *and* require special Taxi license plates. You might be able to forge all of the above, but all it takes is one NYPD officer checking the plate to get busted. Airports also log in cab drivers and out to prevent fakes from getting in queue.
While I think the medallion system is rigged by preventing competition, it does prevent you from getting hijacked by fake cabs or those who would abuse the meter and such (a common practice I've seen and/or experienced in other cities and countries).
Still always moving
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2015, @01:20PM
Throughout a trip in India, I just tracked the route with GPS and maps before and as we were driving (none of the meters were off). I'm not sure how much people have to worry about meter abuse these days, especially in the US.