Having lived in cities almost all my life, I get nervous about celebrating positive change. Cities are by nature ironic, and if your city hears you extolling the increased cleanliness of the streets, it will send a garbage truck to turn over on your corner. Bask in the glory of a great new elected official, and he will get indicted in the morning or caught in a sex scandal the next night.
So I am a hesitant to say this, but New York's credit-cards-in-cabs system is great.
The Times reports that the cabbies, after early howls of outrage, have seen the positive side of the change -- thanks in large part to the fact that introducing credit card payment has turned driving a cab into one of the very few recession-proof businesses in town. The recession, indeed, has been good for the taxi business as companies have switched from black car services to cabs in order to save money.
For cab riders, convenience is far from the end of the story. Pay for a ride with a credit card and you not only have a tax record, you have a way to track the cab if you happen to leave something behind. With some luck, your lost briefcase could now be located in as little as 15 minutes.
Or, according to Taxi and Limousine Commissioner Matthew Daus, if you want to complain about the cabbie, the credit card record will pin down the identity of the driver. If you think this is a small thing, imagine trying to actually identify the guy who you observed from the back of the head while he cursed, smoked or gabbed on cell phone. (In the future, you may be able to file a complaint from the screen in the back seat.)
Maybe this is the reason cab drivers have seemed better behaved lately. They're afraid you'll pay by credit card and use the record to drag them into the much-loathed cab court.
Judging the quality of the average New York City cab driver is a completely subjective business, based entirely on the luck of the draw. I once had a cab driver who was watching a TV while he was driving (he had placed a small portable TV on the dashboard) and yelled at me when I complained.
And visitors still encounter the legendary terror associated with kamikaze cabbies who speed through crowded city streets. Earlier this year, the auto editor of the Virginian-Pilot was unfortunate enough to suffer through such a terror trip in one of the city's impossibly cramped hybrid cabs.
"Imagine riding as a back-seat passenger in a Honda Civic with a thick partition behind the front seats to separate you from the cab driver. Now, imagine lurching across Manhattan as if escaping from law enforcement. Excuse me, but I can't feel my legs. Next time, I'm walking," wrote Larry Printz.
My big remaining complaint is "Taxi TV" -- the reports and ads beamed from the same screen where the desirable credit card info will appear at the end of the trip. The reports and ads are very boring, very annoying and on occasion impossible to shut off.
Commissioner Daus says this isn't a big problem. But to me, hell is a long trip downtown in a cab in which you are given tips on how to buff your nails and Jay Leno skits over and over and over again.