From the New York Sun, we learn…

More than 100 drivers and medallion owners bundled up in scarves and ski caps for a rally in front of the Taxi & Limousine Commission headquarters on Rector Street yesterday, protesting the global positioning systems they say will infringe on their privacy rights. Holding up signs reading “Stop GPS” and “Ready to Strike,” taxi drivers called the new technology an expensive “snake oil scam” that they will be forced to pay for.

“The thing the TLC cares least about is the most important part of the vehicle, the driver,” a taxi driver, Abraham Mittleton, said. “At any given moment, the TLC will be able to use the GPS to play Big Brother.”

While the Taxi & Limousine Commission says it will use the tracking devices only to reunite passengers with belongings left behind in taxis, drivers say their fear is that it will be used to prosecute them for speeding and other traffic violations.

“It’s an industry where you don’t have basic labor rights,” the executive director of the Taxi Workers Alliance, Bhairavi Desai, said, referring to health insurance, which cab drivers must cover themselves because they are considered freelance workers. “Now even basic civil rights are being stripped away.”

“Drivers are angry and ready to take action,” Ms. Desai said. She said a strike is something that is being seriously discussed among the 7,000 city taxi drivers represented by the Taxi Workers Alliance.

Ironically, the last time they went on strike was in 1998 because Mayor Giuliani raised the rates on traffic violations.

I think that the fact that drivers are up in arms over this proves that what the average Joe thinks about taxi drivers is true. They don’t care about traffic laws, they don’t care about pedestrians, and they don’t care about other drivers.

All they care about is making a buck and if that means breaking the law, they’re perfectly okay with it.

Scumbags, the lot of ‘em.

Technorati Tags: taxi, nyc, tlc

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