welcome! hope you brought helmet or hard hat, pads, compass, gps app, tinder, magnifying glass....

At some point in 2011, the State of New York allowed people who were renewing their driver's licenses to do the renewal by mail or online, with no eye test. A driver's license is good for ten years, but the possibility that one's eyes might have changes within 10 years seems to have eluded those chosen to govern us. This is why we so often see cars starting to cross an intersection come to a squealing juddering stop - someone else was coming straight at them and clearly didn't see them.

Actually the last time I had an eye test at our Department of Motor Vehicles, the tester waved her arm at the wall behind her. "You see that chart? with all the letters?" I allowed as how I saw the chart. "OK," said the tester, and she initialed my form and sent me forth to wreak terror on innocent pedestrians and fellow drivers, although only on the days when I forget my glasses.

I find two more recent developments even scarier. The "local geography" section of the exam to get a taxi driver's license has been omitted. I believe this was done on the grounds that when a passenger who wants to get to, say, 86th Street and Madison Avenue notices that the cab is getting on line for the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and is at a point where there's no turning back, the passenger's anger and dismay will communicate an error message to the driver. Live and learn.

I recently got in a cab to go to Kennedy Airport from Manhattan, and the driver asked me if that was the same as JFK Airport. Then he asked if I knew how to get there.

After a brief discussion of roadways he'd never heard of,  he told me I should turn on my phone, download Google Maps and have it play the directions to himHe said he had the app on his phone, but the words were too small.
the road to LaGuardia Airport
And the latest - English is no longer required. The  NewYork City taxi driver license test is to be given in your choice of 7 languages. Although since the test won't require you to know where places are, or what is uptown, does it matter what language you don't know things in?
bref-nish
In terms of communication with passengers, I think it's great to have multilingual drivers. People come here from all over the world. N bèlantre! But what about reading street signs? What about understanding the instructions from the passenger? What about asking for help when lost? What about reading Google Maps? In Paris, in Berlin, cab drivers tell me they're required to pass an English test.

Anyway I would suggest that if you're planning to visit NewYork, and I hope you will, you need to take some sensible precautions. The title of this post exaggerates a little. However, in addition to the usual don't accept drinks from strangers, don't shop at a "going out of business" store, keep your purse tightly closed, I suggest that if you're nervous about getting into a vehicle under the control of a possibly vision-impaired non-English-speaking driver who has no idea where to take you, you might get to know our bus system. It's easy. And the bus drivers know where they're going. (ok, don't take a bus to our airports, that way lies madness. Don't fly in or out of LaGuardia, and grit your teeth and take a cab or a car service to Kennedy).

By the way, the reason for the recent loosening of requirements was to make becoming a cab driver more competitive with becoming an Uber driver. They don't have any exam at all.

11 comments:

  1. I know people love Uber but I say sat nav is only as good as your spelling. In London, Black cabs with the knowledge, the tube, or walking I say!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, Naomi, I love The Knowledge. I love the idea of conquering a city with only a brain and a little motorscooter. I get so happy when I'm picking my way around London and see a guy stopping his ride to make a note on a little pocket map. I hope this never becomes a lost art.

      Delete
  2. We used both cabs and Uber on our trip to NYC last year, and the Uber experience was much more pleasant. Exam or not, this is one area where the free market and its rating system result in better customer service.

    As I may have mentioned when I took my trip, I have been a Donna Tartt devotee since the first week TSH was released in 1992, so one of the little treats of my Manhattan trip was seeing some of the same sights Theo describes in "The Goldfinch." Unfortunately I also shared the olfactory experience of one of his cab rides--baby sh!t and coconut air freshener. The NYC cabbie exam should include a section on personal and automotive hygiene.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, Hexicon, you reminded me that the "TaxiRiders' Bill of Rights" seems to have disappeared from cabs. One of the "Rights" was to have a clean well-groomed driver, and another was to have a clean cab. I forget the bureaucratic language that was used to describe aromas.

      I've had mixed experiences with uber. Most recently, the driver refused to make a left turn - "bad luck," he said. We got to our destination, but very very slowly.
      .
      ,

      Delete
  3. We used both cabs and Uber on our trip to NYC last year, and the Uber experience was much more pleasant. Exam or not, this is one area where the free market and its rating system result in better customer service.

    As I may have mentioned when I took my trip, I have been a Donna Tartt devotee since the first week TSH was released in 1992, so one of the little treats of my Manhattan trip was seeing some of the same sights Theo describes in "The Goldfinch." Unfortunately I also shared the olfactory experience of one of his cab rides--baby sh!t and coconut air freshener. The NYC cabbie exam should include a section on personal and automotive hygiene.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have to say that if this is in response to the Uber threat it is actually working into the wrong direction. The last thing the taxis need are a bunch of people that speak poor english, keep their taxis like a tip and don't know the city without a GPS turned on.
    Here in Australia, the taxi industry fought back with the #mytaxi social media campaign. As you can imagine, inviting the public to share their taxi story using the handle worked well http://www.smh.com.au/national/my-cab-driver-fell-asleep-taxi-industrys-social-media-campaign-backfires-20151109-gkuwis.html

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi WFF,
    I hope you are enjoying your last summer weekends.
    A few weeks ago, I took a taxi in Boston . I remarked to the cab driver that it was a pleasant and quiet time on the streets. He laughed and said that he used to be a NYC taxi driver, but would never go back...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, Knit Yarns, I actually find it intimidating to drive in Boston!

      Delete
  6. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Blimey, that is a worry! I still haven't been to New York on my travels but will remember your wise words - and my hard hat - when I do.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. and you must promise to let me know when you're coming!

      Delete

As Alice Roosevelt Longworth said, if you've got anything bad to say, sit next to me! No, really, please remember to be kind, and don't say anything fred's mother would not approve of (Diner's mom didn't approve of anything. Including fred.)
Wellfedfred and the Whining Diner reserve the right to edit or delete any comments submitted to this blog without notice if we find:
1. Comments deemed to be spam or questionable spam
2. Comments including profanity or objectionable language
3. Comments containing concepts that could be deemed offensive
4. Comments that attack a person individually
and since there's been a flood of spam lately, we're trying the Robot thing to see if we can block some spam...