My God, how I hate these things.
For those who may not know, let me first tell you what the Taxi TV is. It's a television monitor situated in the rear compartment of all yellow and green (outer borough) taxicabs in New York City. It's not, however, a regular TV like you'd have at home. Rather, it consists of pre-programmed information, the majority of it being clips from television talk shows, along with commercials and the occasional public service announcement. The entertainment, the pitches, and the hear-ye-hear-ye's are packaged in continuous loops which the passenger may see and hear twice or even three times during the course of a ride. The driver hears it whenever the meter is turned on, which on the average is 60% of his twelve-hour shift.
The speakers of the Taxi TV are situated about 24 inches behind the driver's head. Not only does the cabbie have no control over its coming on automatically when the meter is engaged, he has no control over the thing's volume. The passenger can, with a tap-tap-tap of his finger, raise the volume to make it suddenly blasting into the driver's ears. He may also turn it off, and many do just that if they can figure out how to accomplish the task. Most, however, simply ignore it while conversing with their riding companions or the driver, texting, or chatting on their phones. Thus the Taxi TV is, more often than not, just "noise".
And if all this weren't enough to make you scream, let me add that it was the city itself (Mayor Bloomberg, in particular) which mandated its presence in all cabs in 2008. It is there primarily to raise advertising revenue for medallion owners and the companies which won the contracts for its installation and maintenance. The drivers don't see a dime - of course!
It is very unpopular with the majority of the taxi-riding public. And needless to say, the drivers universally hate the thing.
Well, my dislike for the Taxi TV has been welling up in me for all these years. The only positive thing I can say about it is that it has given me a worthy replacement for my Giuliani rant. (I had my Giuliani rant perfected to such a point that passengers in my cab, who may have made the mistake of saying something positive about former Mayor Giuliani to me, would have been happy by the end of the ride to sign a petition to have the man tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a pole. It was a thing of elocutionary beauty.)
A few weeks ago an acorn dropped on my head and the idea occurred to me to make an offer to passengers in my cab to raise awareness of the outrageousness of the presence of a television monitor in a taxicab, or at least of its continuous noise. I decided to give them a one dollar rebate on the ride if they would just turn off the damned sound.
It made the New York Post.
Click here for the link.
For those who may not know, let me first tell you what the Taxi TV is. It's a television monitor situated in the rear compartment of all yellow and green (outer borough) taxicabs in New York City. It's not, however, a regular TV like you'd have at home. Rather, it consists of pre-programmed information, the majority of it being clips from television talk shows, along with commercials and the occasional public service announcement. The entertainment, the pitches, and the hear-ye-hear-ye's are packaged in continuous loops which the passenger may see and hear twice or even three times during the course of a ride. The driver hears it whenever the meter is turned on, which on the average is 60% of his twelve-hour shift.
The speakers of the Taxi TV are situated about 24 inches behind the driver's head. Not only does the cabbie have no control over its coming on automatically when the meter is engaged, he has no control over the thing's volume. The passenger can, with a tap-tap-tap of his finger, raise the volume to make it suddenly blasting into the driver's ears. He may also turn it off, and many do just that if they can figure out how to accomplish the task. Most, however, simply ignore it while conversing with their riding companions or the driver, texting, or chatting on their phones. Thus the Taxi TV is, more often than not, just "noise".
And if all this weren't enough to make you scream, let me add that it was the city itself (Mayor Bloomberg, in particular) which mandated its presence in all cabs in 2008. It is there primarily to raise advertising revenue for medallion owners and the companies which won the contracts for its installation and maintenance. The drivers don't see a dime - of course!
It is very unpopular with the majority of the taxi-riding public. And needless to say, the drivers universally hate the thing.
Well, my dislike for the Taxi TV has been welling up in me for all these years. The only positive thing I can say about it is that it has given me a worthy replacement for my Giuliani rant. (I had my Giuliani rant perfected to such a point that passengers in my cab, who may have made the mistake of saying something positive about former Mayor Giuliani to me, would have been happy by the end of the ride to sign a petition to have the man tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a pole. It was a thing of elocutionary beauty.)
A few weeks ago an acorn dropped on my head and the idea occurred to me to make an offer to passengers in my cab to raise awareness of the outrageousness of the presence of a television monitor in a taxicab, or at least of its continuous noise. I decided to give them a one dollar rebate on the ride if they would just turn off the damned sound.
It made the New York Post.
Click here for the link.
