http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/34881/

By Helena Zhu
Epoch Times Staff

NEW YORK—Two more taxi drivers reported Thursday assault on the job, just weeks after a driver was slashed across the neck and barely survived. Now local officials are raising support for a bill that will toughen penalties for assaulting a taxi driver.

The two recently assaulted drivers include Abubakar Abdallah, 46, and Jangbir Singh, 45. Abdallah who was left bleeding from cuts on the face and shoulder and a fractured nose, before five attackers took his taxi and collided into a private car. Singh was spat at, racially slandered, and assaulted in the arm with a metal pipe. Singh's passenger, a tourist returning to Canada, witnessed the scene while screaming in the backseat. 

“We need an anti-violence bill to stop yellow cabs from being turned into moving targets,” said 30-year veteran driver Beresford Simmons in a press release. “These assaults leave us drivers and even our riders and others on the street vulnerable and injured.”

Abdallah and Singh joined the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA) to call for a “Day of Enough is Enough: Respect our Labor. Protect our Lives” on May 25. All participating taxis will be decorated with symbolic red ribbons and go for a motorcade to Albany to urge the passage of the Taxi Driver Protection Act.

Introduced by Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Queens) and state Sen. Eric Adams (D-Brooklyn) and endorsed by newly appointed Taxi & Limousine Commission Chairman David Yassky, the act would make assaults against drivers a felony and require warning signs inside taxis, same as the ones already in buses and subways. 

Both Abdallah and Singh said they will join the taxi caravan to the state capital, hoping their suffering will not be in vain. 

“I want the blood that I shed to have meaning and not be ignored,” said Abdallah.

Immigrant Rights Activists Rally In New York City
New York's PIX11 / WPIX-TV
"... here to say there's more of us here in this country that are against the Arizona proposal," added Bhairavi Desai of New York's Taxi Workers Alliance. ...
<http://www.wpix.com/news/wpix-immigration-protests-nyc,0,3865799.story>

NYTWA Marches onto Wall Street with Unionized Labor
http://www.ny1.com/1-all-boroughs-news-content/117792/local-community-groups-rally-in-support-of-financial-reform

BY Pete Donohue

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Sunday, April 11th 2010, 4:00 AM

A taxi drivers group will call for a law making it a felony to attack hacks in the wake of a cabbie getting slashed across the throat by two women going to the Bronx.

Two female thugs - angry that cabbie Mohammed Chowdhury asked one of them to stop urinating in his car - are accused of slicing him with a utility knife in late March.

"I'm lucky to be alive," said Chowdhury, who suffered a 5-inch wound. "It's a miracle."

Chowdhury will relive the March 28 attack Sunday when he appears with Taxi Workers Alliance officials to call for more legal protections for cab drivers.

The drivers group wants a "shield law" mandating that felony charges punishable by a prison sentence be levied against anyone who assaults a cabbie, even if the injury inflicted is minor. Eighty-nine cabbies have been robbed this year, according to the NYPD.

"We want the law to deter crimes against drivers, not have their safety be left solely to luck and miracles," said Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the Taxi Workers Alliance. "We want the public to know drivers are not alone; the law is on their side."

The women hailed Chowdhury on E. 23rd St. for a ride to the Bronx, and he quickly realized that one of the women was urinating in the back of his cab.

"Ma'am, please, you cannot pee in the car," Chowdhury said he told the woman, Lynette Acevedo, 28, urging her to go to a nearby fast-food restaurant. Instead, she went into a rage , he said.

The second passenger, Kathleen Davis, 20, grabbed Chowdhury's hair from behind after passing a knife to Acevedo, authorities said. "My throat was open," Chowdhury said. "She slashed me from left to right."

A pair of emergency medical technicians passing by came to the cabbie's aid and alerted police, who arrested the alleged attackers. Police charged both women with felony assault.

New York Taxi & Limousine Commission Chairman David Yassky said he supports the Taxi Drivers Protection Law.

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it With Joe Kemp and Rocco Parascandola

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/04/11/2010-04-11_hacks_hail_law_making_cabbie_attacks_a_felony.html#ixzz0kuKzT83F

Click here to view NY1 story

April 7, 2010

By: Bobby Cuza

City officials were asked to set the record straight Wednesday on the recent fare gouging scam involving city cab drivers. NY1's Bobby Cuza filed the following report.

Taxi drivers say the city jumped the gun last month when it announced three-quarters of the city’s cabbies had overcharged passengers at least once.

During a City Council hearing Wednesday, the former head of the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission Matthew Daus said the numbers were simply misinterpreted.

"The numbers that the press reported, not necessarily the TLC, at the time, basically indicated and portrayed the drivers as all being guilty," Daus said. "If you look at the first statements that I put out on it, I never said that, the TLC never said that."

In fact, Daus has since acknowledged that many of the overcharges were mistakes or accidents that actually resulted in no added charges. But he stood by his decision to release the numbers, saying it alerted the public to a scam whereby drivers would charge the suburban rate, which shows up as "Rate 4" instead of "Rate 1" on the meter.

In an unusual move, Daus, who left the job last month, testified before the City Council alongside newly installed chairman David Yassky.

"No one should conclude from the data that’s been put out there that every taxi driver is ripping people off. The data absolutely doesn’t say that," Yassky said.

Drivers on the other hand say the damage has been done, and are calling for an independent audit.

"What about drivers’ reputation? The TLC needs to be accountable for maligning an entire workforce when they clearly didn’t have the information to back it up," said Bhairavi Desai of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.

To prevent the problem going forward, almost all cabs have now been outfitted with a notification system: the backseat TV screen now alerts passengers when the suburban fare has been activated.

Meanwhile, cases of overcharging have been referred to the city’s Department of Investigation, and the DA may pursue some criminal charges. But Yassky couldn’t say how long that would take, or when the TLC would be done analyzing the data to say just how many cabbies cheated riders.

"This is the immediate priority for me and for the agency, and we will work fast," Yassky said.

TLC officials say part of the problem is with data collection. Right now, they have to go collect trip information from three different outside vendors, all of whom track information differently. They say that issue will be addressed when those vendors' contracts expire later this year.

The garages’ association, the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade (MTBOT), lost their state lawsuit to limit the TLC’s powers over them and basically leave drivers defenseless. They wanted to charge taxes above the lease cap, limit TLC’s authority to only raise caps—never lower them, and require owner profits—not driver income and health —to be the chief factor in deciding on caps. Millionaire garages claim if the new TLC rules stay, they will go bankrupt. Thirty years ago, with leasing, they took away drivers’ right to a union. Now they want to take away our right to regulatory protection. Under representation by lawyers from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, NYTWA submitted key affidavits against the garages.

Click here for full list of lease caps by each shift and latest campaign flyer.