"Make The Light"

Among the many annoyances in the game of taxi driving is the rare passenger who has the nerve to tell you how to drive. Not where to drive or what route to take, and not even how not to drive ("please don't drive so fast, I'm feeling nauseous"), but how to drive.

Examples:

"Change lanes."

"Get ahead of that bus."

"Go!"

And my favorite: "Make the light!"

Let us consider for a moment the implications involved in making such a statement. It is as if to say:

"Not only do I not regard you as a professional who knows how to do his job, I think I'm better at it than you are, so do what I tell you."

Or, to put it more bluntly:

"You're an idiot. I'm smart. Obey me."

A couple of years ago I was going down 11th Avenue with a passenger in that back seat when we hit a bit of heavy traffic and he abruptly commanded, "Get in the left lane!" Never letting a comment like that go by, I made eye contact with him in the mirror and said, Robert de Niro-style, "Are you talking to me?" And then, not waiting for a reply, "You must be talking to someone else, because no one talks to me like that!" He immediately changed his attitude and we had a relatively pleasant ride across 23rd Street to his destination at 6th Avenue.

It's a good feeling when little mutinies like that are squelched and you can regain the captaincy of your ship. Your dignity is restored and life seems to be worth living again. Which leads me to the latest incident on this chain...

I was cruising on West 63rd Street a little after 6 p.m. a few weeks ago when I was hailed by a doorman on the block between Central Park West and Broadway. He opened the door and in came a 60ish woman in a rush to get to 65th and Amsterdam, a short ride. About fifty yards in front of us was a green traffic light and she barked out those words:

"Make the light!"

I bristled internally and continued driving at my normal speed. Now, there seems to be a Force that decrees that whenever a passenger says, "Make the light!" the light you've been ordered to make will turn yellow just as you're approaching the intersection and you will have a moment of truth to decide whether to speed up and maybe go through a red, or to play it safe and hit the brake.

Right on cue, the Force did its thing and the light turned yellow.

I had my moment of truth, and...

I hit the brake.

My passenger was very displeased. She grunted an "ugh" and barked, "You could have made it," with a scowl on her face that was so pronounced that it was clear that from her point of view stopping for the red light wasn't merely an error, it was a crime.

So the scene was set for conflict. My professionalism had been assaulted, and there would be a response. But rather than turning around and giving her a lecture about safe driving, fines, and suspended licenses, I tried to reason with her. First, I pointed out the layout of the intersection in front of us.

Broadway, as its name implies, is a wide road with an median of greenery separating two directions of traffic, so the width of the intersection has to be considered before crossing it at a yellow light. Following Broadway, a mere fifty more yards away, is the next intersection, 63rd and Columbus Avenue. Having driven through these intersections perhaps a hundred thousand times in the last 32 years, I am quite familiar with the timing of the lights there and I knew that even if we'd made the yellow light at Broadway at the last second, we certainly would not have made the next light at Columbus. However, when the light turns from red to green at Broadway and you drive straight ahead, you will always get a green at Columbus, too. So there was no reason to speed up to "make the light" at Broadway in the first place.

My passenger's response to this perfectly rational and accurate dissertation was to snap back, "We won't make the light at Columbus". It was a direct contradiction to what I'd just said.

"Yes, we will," I replied.

"No, we won't," she returned, as if we were having a verbal tennis match.

The thought occurred to me that here was a situation where I could win a bet. I could say, "Oh, really, if you're so sure of that let's make it double the meter or nothing." I could add a few extra doubloons to my coffers with this ride and, better than that, I could humble this old crab and put her in her place. But I decided not to stoop to that level. It would be like taking candy from a baby. Better than that, I thought, would be to offer her a deal in which she couldn't lose, except if losing meant that she'd have to shut up and eat crow.

I said these words:

"Tell you what, if we don't make the light on Columbus, this is a free ride."

The success of my strategy was immediate. She did shut up, her demeanor changing instantly into an interested facial expression that said, "Well... okay...". The eating crow part would come in just a bit.

In a few more moments, our light at 63rd and Broadway turned green. The light ahead of us at Columbus, the light I had to make, was already green, as I knew it would be. With just fifty yards between these two lights, it was impossible not to make that Columbus light.

My foot pressed down on the accelerator.

You know, there's a military truism that in combat operations, nothing ever goes according to plan. Apparently the same thing is true in taxi driving. For just as I drove through the Broadway intersection, not one, not two, but three cabs suddenly appeared in front of me and stopped to discharge passengers at the Empire Hotel, the only building on the tiny block. These taxis didn't pull over to the side. No, they just stopped in the middle of the street, making it impossible to get around them.

Precious seconds ticked by. A couple of beeps from my puny horn did nothing to move them. The light at Columbus turned yellow. The light at Columbus turned red. And I found myself in the midst of my latest humiliation, a knife in one hand, a fork in the other, and a crow on a platter in front of me.

I tried taking it like a good sport, laughing out loud, and not trying to wiggle out of the noose I'd created for myself by using the cabs blocking the street as an excuse. "Well," I said, "a deal's a deal. This is a free ride."

Of course, what I was hoping she would say was what any fair-minded person would say - that it was all right, that she wouldn't hold me to my offer. But instead, what she said was, "Well, I'll give you a good tip." In other words, "Thanks for the free ride, sucker."

My only solace was that my misery would be brief. 63rd Street runs into Lincoln Center at Columbus, so we had to make a left turn, go down to 62nd Street, make a right, and then drive over to the next avenue, Amsterdam, make another right, and finally go just three blocks to her destination, the Lincoln Center Library, at 65th Street. As it turned out, the reason she was in a rush was because she works in the library and was running late for the evening shift.

In the few remaining minutes of our ride, which seemed like an hour to me, she did an attitude reversal. No longer was she an ill-mannered cow in a china shop, stomping over anything in her way because she was late for work. Her getting something for free had trumped her bitch card, and she became a chatty human being sitting in the back seat. But I even found her attempt to be sociable offensive when she asked me this famous, left-handed question:

"So what else do you do besides drive a cab?"

I am asked this occasionally, and when it happens I usually look at it as a cast-not-your-pearls-before-swine situation. The person who asks it is telling you that the job you are doing is considered by him to be beneath his standard of what a respectable job should be - would he ask a teacher what else does he do besides teach? - and what I normally say is, "This is it, I drive a cab." And then give him a little speech about the good things of taxi driving - freedom, adventure, the whole human race sitting in your back seat, no boss, no four walls, no office politics, no deadlines, no bringing your work home with you. I leave out the parts about twelve hour shifts, no health care, no pension - things like that.

But to this passenger, probably because I was hoping she would realize it would be mean-spirited to hold a working man to his promise of a free ride, I tossed a pearl.

"Well," I said, "I'm a writer."

"What do you write?"

Holding back a temptation to say "words", I told her I had a blog.

"You must have lots of stories."

"Yes, driving a cab and stories are a good fit," I agreed.

"So much material," she added.

"That's the thing - the material just comes right to you," said I, mentally noting the irony of someone who could be "material" herself commenting about the abundance of material.

Amazingly, against all odds it seemed that we were developing some rapport between us and, as I pulled in front of the Lincoln Center Library, it started to feel like this ride might actually have a pleasant ending. I had left the meter running and the total was $6.00, including the $1.00 evening rush hour surcharge and the 50 cent New York State tax. So here was a second moment of truth - would she redeem herself by handing me the full fare, telling me thanks, but no thanks, for the free ride offer? I had already decided I would say that I appreciated that and then, like Harry Chapin in his Taxi song, stuff the bills in my shirt and we'd both be on our way.

But instead she handed me $2.00, opened her door, said, "Have a nice night," and walked away. I watched her enter the library and shot an imaginary arrow through her head. Then, realizing I had an extra arrow in my quiver, I took it out and shot myself, too.

For having offered, and given, a free ride to someone who was not one of the nice people of this world.

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Target practice? Don't shoot a mean person. Send an arrow over here instead for Pictures From A Taxi.

How To Beat A Ticket

Back in December I was given four moving-violation tickets for a single incident by a particularly mean-spirited cop. (To read about it, click here.) These tickets could have meant six points on my license and $400 in fines if found guilty on all charges, so beating them was a big deal to me, especially since in New York City taxi drivers are subjected to special rules, one of them being that if you get six points on your license your hack license is automatically suspended for one month.

That rule, by the way, applies whether you get the points while driving a taxi or while driving your own car. Which means that a New York taxi driver could be driving a rented car in Wyoming, get a ticket at a speed trap or whatever, and lose his job in New York City. Seems clearly unconstitutional to me, but it's a rule that has stood since it was put in place by Mayor Crueliani, I mean Giuliani, in the late '90s.

But I digress.

I had to put my many years of experience in trying to beat tickets to work here because so much was at stake. I'm happy to say I was successful (or this post wouldn't be titled "How To Beat A Ticket"!) and, in reflection, I realized I might be able to pass a few tips on to you. So here goes.

1. The process of beating the ticket begins at the very moment the cop puts it in your hand. You have already (politely) tried to talk your way out of it, but that has failed. There is an impetus within you to say something sarcastic as the cop turns and walks away. Don't. Just shut up. The reason is that cops make notes of all pertinent data when writing tickets, and you want the cop to forget you. You don't want the cop going back to his squad car and noting, "make sure you nail this asshole". You're going to meet him again in a courtroom and you want the cop to have no special recollection of you.

2. Examine the ticket itself for errors. I have been surprised several times to find mistakes made in the transference of information from the driver's license and vehicle registration to the ticket. I once had a ticket dismissed by a judge who told me I "didn't have to say a word" - the ticket contained an error and that was all it took. Of the four tickets I had been given this time, two of them contained two mistakes and the other two contained one mistake. This doesn't guarantee a dismissal - apparently that depends on the mood of the judge - but it may be all you'll need. And it certainly helps present the argument that the cop's ability to observe what he says happened (as opposed to what you say) is questionable. This can be quite important because these cases usually really come down to your word against the cop's and the judge, if he's sympathetic to you, will be searching for any reason he can find to see it your way.

3. Delay, delay, delay. The most successful tactic for beating a ticket in New York City is to delay the hearing date which you receive in the mail after pleading "not guilty". The reason for this is that the hearing date you are first given will be a day that has been set aside for the cop's convenience as a "court day". The second or third date may not be a time that's as convenient for the cop and he may not show up at all or, as happened in my case, he may show up in his street clothes without his notes, and thus need to ask the judge for a delay himself because he is unprepared. Fortunately for me the judge did not grant his request and dismissed the tickets on the spot.

4. Do your homework. Don't show up empty-handed. Always prepare and bring with you a diagram that shows the streets, vehicles, and any other relevant information. Take photographs, if that would help prove your case. If a video could be useful, make one, and post it on YouTube so it can be referred to with the court's computer. (Just be sure it's less than 10 minutes in length - that's the time limit on YouTube.) If you have any witnesses prepare a statement of the facts of the case and get them to not only sign it, but to notarize it. A person who stands before a judge with an organized stack of stuff in his hand adds credibility and a bit of intrigue (what's he got there?) to himself. A person who is empty-handed looks like just another liar.

5. Try to get the judge to like you. Now here is something I'll bet you never thought of: traffic court judges hear the same insipid excuses from defendants day after day, week after week, year after year. They become bored and cynical and difficult to convince. Try to give them something that's a bit original. Here's an example. Many years ago I was waiting for a fare at 3 a.m. in front of a bar that was frequented by transsexuals. The meanest cop I have ever met came along and wrote myself and the two other taxi drivers in line in front of me tickets for double-parking. It was an outrageously mean ticket and when I asked the cop why he was doing this, after first threatening to "collar" me, he snarled back that it was because "we don't like this place". When I went to court I told the judge that I had just pulled up at the bar behind two other cabs and "a person who I thought was a woman" dropped money down on the front seat and exited the cab, leaving me there counting the money when the cop came along. So I wasn't technically "double-parked", I was momentarily "standing". My story, although a complete lie, entertained the judge and he decided to give me "the benefit of the doubt" and dismissed the ticket.

6. As you're waiting in the courtroom for your case to be called, say these words to yourself: "I can do this. I'm going to win."

Hope this helps!

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And if it doesn't, maybe this will: click here for Pictures From A Taxi.

Two Kinds Of Tickets

Something happened to me a few weeks ago that hardly ever happens to me: I got a ticket. Not a parking ticket, a moving violation ticket. The kind that adds points to your license. And this reminded me of a truism I discovered quite a few years ago when it comes to tickets. And that is that there are two kinds of tickets: 1) the ticket where you are mad at yourself for having made such a dumb move, and 2) the ticket where you are mad at the cop for having been so mean that he would have written the ticket at all.

An example of the first kind of ticket would be, say, you make a left turn at an intersection where there is a sign that clearly says, "No Left Turns". You see the sign but you make the turn anyway. A cop sees you do this, pulls you over, and writes you a ticket. You are mad at yourself. You knew you were doing something illegal but you did it anyway and you got caught. "Stupid dumb ass me," you say to yourself.

 An example of the second kind of ticket would be this: you are approaching an intersection where there is a stop sign. When you get to the intersection you check to see that no other vehicles or pedestrians are present and bring your car almost to a stop but not completely to a full stop. As you proceed your speed is less than three miles per hour. A cop pulls you over for failing to stop at a stop sign and writes you a ticket.

 You are mad at the cop. What you did might have been technically illegal but you were in good control and knew that your actions in that situation were completely safe. You don't introvert and call yourself a goddamned freaking moron for not having come to a full stop. You curse the cop instead (in your mind, of course).

 Well, guess what kind of ticket I received? Here's a hint - I wasn't mad at myself. 

 Okay, this is what happened... On a Monday night at 4 AM - the time of the night when the "city that never sleeps" is taking catnap - I was cruising down 2nd Avenue in Manhattan with a couple of cars in front of me but no cars behind me. I was in the middle of the avenue. Suddenly a person appeared on the sidewalk to my left waving at me in the classic "I want a taxi" fashion. As a veteran cabbie who has been in this situation once or twice during every shift for the last 31 years, I did two things: a) I instantly checked my side view mirror to make sure no vehicles were behind me, and b) I turned sharply, cutting across two lanes, and got to the passenger. 

I knew, before I made the turn, that it was a safe move. No one had to swerve out of the way to avoid hitting me. No one had to step on their brake. In actuality, it was an expert maneuver made by a professional driver in order to do his job. But the cop didn't see it that way.

 

The passenger, a twenty-something female, entered the cab and told me her destination. During the time it takes to open and close the rear door, our light turned red. Then, just after it changed to green and I began to move forward to begin the ride, a police car pulled up beside me and a not pleasant officer informed me that he wanted to see several pieces of identification. The passenger departed to seek another means of getting to point B. 

As I handed over my driver's license and the taxi's identification card to the officer, I knew immediately that I was in trouble. Because just as there are two kinds of tickets, there are two kinds of cops you may encounter in this situation: 1) The "let's talk about it" cop, and 2) The "there's nothing to talk about, so don't talk to me" cop. With a "let's talk about it" cop you at least have a chance of talking your way out of it. Even by allowing conversation, the cop is saying, in effect, that he is willing to allow the possibility that he will let you off with a warning. I must say that in the past I have been quite successful in this situation. 

 But not this time. This cop was a "there's nothing to talk about" cop. In fact, he might have even been a "if you dare to try to talk your way out of it I will find something else to write you a ticket for" cop. So, actually, there are 3 kinds of cops in this situation. And apparently this cop was of that third variety because, even though I didn't say a word to him and handed him the papers he wanted to see, he thought multiple tickets for a single offense, if in fact there was an offense at all, was the way to go. 

Did I say that I got "a" ticket? Uh, correction... make that four tickets. 1) Unsafe lane change. 2) Failure to signal. 3) Not stopping within 12 inches of the curb when pulling over for a passenger. (Believe it or not, this absurd rule is actually on the books in New York City.) 4) Stopping in a crosswalk. This was from a cop whose powers of observation were so good that he could see all of this from a full block behind me, but whose powers of observation were not so good that he couldn't avoid making several errors in trying to copy over the information from my driver's license onto the tickets he was writing. 

When I got back to my garage and told the dispatchers and a couple of the drivers what had happened, I was informed (belatedly) that "the heat is on" in the city. And, in fact, I noticed in the following couple of weeks that an inordinate amount of taxis were being pulled over, and presumably ticketed, by the cops. 

This situation - the possibility of being selected as fodder for ticket blitzes - is one of the crosses that New York City taxi drivers bear and I suspect is one of the main reasons that many competent people decide to get out of the taxi driving business. It's just too much to take, considering everything else we have to put up with. And it reminds me of what I consider to be a fascinating observation about an aspect of life in New York City that I have made and I don't think anyone else has noticed. 

I would like to invite every New Yorker who may read this blog to consider this. Here is the observation: we have over 13,000 yellow medallion cabs and many more thousands of car service vehicles roaming the streets of the city. Some of these drivers are amazingly competent and some of them are not. But competent or not, one thing even a casual observer would notice is that taxis are pulled over by police cars all the time. I see it every night. 

 However, we also have in New York, thousands of buses crowding the streets. We have hundreds, if not thousands, of garbage trucks roaming around, apparently, with impunity. And we also have quite a few newspaper delivery trucks making their rounds. During my years as a cabbie I have seen countless instances of buses gridlocking intersections, running red lights, and cutting off other vehicles (although I do think, generally speaking, that bus drivers are highly competent). I have seen garbage trucks commit every imaginable traffic offense frequently. And I see newspaper delivery trucks running red lights and speeding every night. But here's what I have not seen. And I think this is so amazing that I will put it in boldface: 

  I have never seen, not even once in 31 years, a bus, a garbage truck, nor a newspaper delivery truck pulled over by a cop. Not once!

And if you're a New Yorker, I'll bet you haven't either. Isn't that amazing? I have always assumed that the reason for this is that the fix is in with the city due to agreements made with their unions. The taxi drivers, of course, have no union. Anyway, I pleaded "not guilty" to the tickets and now have a court appearance scheduled for April. The story of which I will post in this blog. So stay tuned.

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And while you're staying tuned, why not click here for Pictures From A Taxi? It's free and you won't get pulled over by a cop. I mean, unless maybe if you're also driving while you're clicking. That would be bad.

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Epilogue (here's what happened at my hearing):

On the appointed day I showed up in Traffic Court in lower Manhattan.  I did not hire an attorney, but I did not arrive empty-handed either.  I came prepared.  I had written up my defense meticulously to explain the circumstances of the incident and made notes to use as references so I could coherently present my case to the hearing officer.  Included in them were that errors had been made on the tickets by the police officers.  This was to imply that their abilities of observation could be lacking.  I've noticed in prior appearances in these traffic courts that the defendants often appear without evidence or even a plan of action after they plead "not guilty".  That's not the way to win. 

When my case was called and I and the cop who wrote the tickets approached the bench, the hearing officer actually asked me if I was prepared.  I replied with a sense of fatalism, "Hopefully".

Without saying another word, he made a mental review of the tickets.  Hearing officers can size up the nature of the tickets very quickly, being that this is their job and they see tickets all day long.  I believe they can also size up the defendants and the police officers very quickly, as they see them all day long, too.

So without even starting the proceedings the hearing officer said to the cop, not unkindly, words to the effect that he was not going to go forward with this one, and the charges were dismissed.  Although I was prepared to defend my case and I expected to win, it turned out I hadn't needed to say a word.  I think the hearing officer could see that I was a veteran cabbie, that I was civil in demeanor, and perhaps he knew that these tickets had been part of a recent and unwarranted campaign of summonsing taxi drivers. 

So there were no fines, no points.  Case dismissed.