Poof! A Sixty Car Cab Company is No More
A blog commenter alerted me to the demise of Everett Yellow. Searching for media concerning its death I found nothing at all about it, Everett Yellow bludgeoned in the middle of night, its bloodied corpse left on the sidewalk, all evidence hosed away. Melodramatic description perhaps but what is happening to the American taxi industry is akin to a horror film, with all of us in the audience fleeing the theatre screaming. The situation is bad, and reaching out to Adisu R., the once owner, and someone I knew in passing, he filled me in on what happened.
He shut down the company last year or was it last month? What was interesting is that he couldn't tell me the exact date, trauma perhaps extinguishing his memory. Asking him for specifics, he said he had been down to 15 cabs upon quitting, down from the original 60. What then exactly happened?
He said Uber killed his business, that and high insurance rates making it no longer viable to run a big taxi company in the population base of 864,000 comprising Snohomish County. I remember seeing their cars every day delivering medical account customers down to Seattle's hospitals but obviously all that kind of business disappeared, much of it probably taken up by so-called medical transportation companies undercutting taxi rates. He said it no longer made any sense to stay in business, unable to make employee payroll and meet all the other costs attached to running a business.
He gave the impression that he had no regrets quitting, saying more than once that, in the end, overall he had made some money, implying that he was glad to be rid of his big taxicab headache. For those don't know, those original 60 cabs, divided into day and night shifts translated into 120 cabbies, a taxi menagerie of every conceivable personality. Dealing with all those drivers had to be a daily challenge. He briefly alluded to that, noting the transitions made by a mostly newly arrived immigrant workforce, something many struggled with.
I have always said that it takes five years for someone to become a truly professional cabbie, so putting rookies out into the meat grinder that is taxi is inherently unkind. Too many accidents, he said. That's right, I responded, BYG (Seattle Yellow Co-op), at the end, was paying something like $11,000 per year per cab for insurance due to rookie at-fault accidents. Neither a sustainable nor wise practice, placing your businesses' wellbeing in the hands of neophytes.
We talked for a maximum of about 8-10 minutes but I heard the history, the undercurrent of too many taxi years in his voice and words. Taxi will do that to you, exhausting you to your very fiber. Taxi was and is always about making the big money though sometimes customer service is lost in the rush for the green. Anything beyond that incentive usually held little value to the individual driver residing in a living hell that's never fun even if the vast majority of your passengers are angels, perdition forever anointing the cabbie's brow.
Who is that smiling over your shoulder, you say? Why Mister Beelzebub of course, Lord of all us flying demons zooming down God's highway! For big time owners like Adisu, it was a flight down into an unavoidable bankruptcy, spiritual if not monetary, a dead-end that could never be described as heaven or paradise, never again achieving economic absolution, all benedictions tossed into the rubbish pile---bent and dented taxicabs stacked ever skyward up reaching stormy, thunderous clouds.
More Than Just the Defeat of an Individual
It ultimately was a close race but Katie Wilson's victory over Bruce Harrell was more about objective examination of real problems facing Seattle than a rhetorical rant that everything is fine when clearly that isn't true. Having first moved to Seattle in 1973, I saw the change from an affordable city to an unaffordable nightmare that defies commonsense. One survey I read before I left last year Seattle listed Seattle at number 16 in overall costs in over 1000 cities with a population of over 500,000. In other terms, Seattle is one of the most expensive places to live on planet Earth. Since it remains an impossible commute to Saturn or Neptune, this planet is our home, and since that is true, all of us must ensure that we can live here within acceptable means.
Harrell overall attitude all along, whether mayor or city council-member, is that everything is okay in Seattle, only requiring a few twerks or adjustments. Maybe that is because he has 15 million dollars in the bank to sit on. Most don't which is why Katie Wilson's election victory resonates, telling everyone a new realism is both necessary and here. Upon her election, Wilson, along with her husband and 2-year old daughter, resided in a 600 square foot apartment. Depending on which part of Seattle she is living in, that translates to a rent between $1500-3000. per month. And what about utilities?
I leave it to you cabbies in Seattle and King County to inform Wilson the dire reality facing the local taxi industry. Make your case as to its value to the community. I know she will listen. This might be your last opportunity to save the cultural heritage that is an over 100 year-old industry. Any hesitation will allow Waymo to literally run you over. Get on that telephone and talk to Katie Wilson. She will take your call.
John Steinbeck's Words of Wisdom
Recently I found this remarkable little paperback by John Steinbeck, "America and Americans," published in 1966. Steinbeck, 1902-1968, was certainly one of America's great 20th C novelists. I read his "The Pony (1933) when I was nine, and his "The Winter of Our Discontent" (1961) might be his best. I read "Of Mice and Men (1937) when I was a teenager. I later formed a grudge again him due to his support for the Vietnam War but after reading his chapter "Created Equal" from this portrayal of the USA and its people, I clearly saw that the man knew his history and only wished the best for his fellow Americans.
I feel compelled to share a quote from page 77 because it speaks to the reality faced by brown and black skinned cabbies in the USA, be it Seattle or New York City. Racial hatred only makes a difficult occupation even harder. Many of my East African cabbie friends were extremely well educated, speaking multiple languages but still, once upon arriving upon America's shores, found themselves prevented from practicing their professions, discriminatory rules making it clear some positions reserved only if you were white, and preferably from the UK, Australia, South Africa, Canada. That why Steinbeck's words are relevant and pertinent to today's workaday world.
"Some years ago, a very intelligent Negro man worked for me in New York. One afternoon through the window I saw this man coming home from the store. As he rounded the corner, a drunk, fat white woman came barreling out of a saloon, slipped on the icy pavement, and fell. Instantly, the man turned at right angles and crossed the street, keeping as far away from the woman as he could. When he came into the house I said, "I saw that. Why did you do it?"
"Oh, that. Well, I guess I thought if I went to help her she was so drunk and mad she might start yelling 'rape'."
"That was a pretty quick reaction," I said.
"Maybe," he said; "but I've been practicing to be a Negro for a long time"
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As I have written in these pages over the years, in the cab I have been accused of every horrible crime possible by deranged, vengeful passengers. And too often I was targeted by cops looking for an excuse to punish me. Given my experience, I know it was many times worse for my black and brown immigrant taxi colleagues.
As I wrote recently, my American black friend Pavel was followed up onto the high level West Seattle freeway bridge by a WA State Highway Patrol officer, issuing him a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt. Anyone in Seattle knows that stretch of highway is hazardous, and stopping for any reason on that roadway is to risk your life. That explains why Steinbeck's friend said what he said, knowing anything involving a white woman could be trouble. I am sure he was very aware that the 14-year-old Emmett Till was murdered in 1955 in Mississippi by a mob for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Merely having black skin was excuse enough to get you killed.
Could the fact be that the American taxi industry in 2012, when Uber decided to start operating, was no longer an industry populated by a majority of white drivers but black and brown immigrants, providing government regulators the excuse to give the industry a swift kick in the buttock? Remember, it was someone no less powerful than then VP Biden who gave a Davos Economic Conference speech praising that new transportation upstart, Uber. And Uber's founders were very white and very Upper Middle Class.
Good luck trying to find Steinbeck's obscure book but it is well worth the search. It might have been his last book, published two years before his sudden death by heart attack in 1968.
America's Taxi Industry Needs A Lobbyist Before it is Run Over by Waymo
The past few weeks I've been reading all these articles about Waymo and the autonomous car industry in general, and the conclusion I've come to is that if the USA taxicab industry remains mute, it is done for. Five years ago, talking about robotic-cabs with my fellow cabbie scoundrels at the Amtrak station, I kept saying it just wasn't possible.
Well, I admit I was dead wrong. Waymo and everyone else is coming for taxi's throat, and even with resistance, there is a 90% chance they are going to win anyway but doing nothing should not be an option. Their momentum must be slowed and, after thinking about it, the only way that will happen is to gain allies on a governmental level, that is, on the municipal, county, state, port authority, and yes, even the federal level. And this conversation needs to start, without delay, next year.
And who should be considered for this David vs Goliath battle? Me. I nominate me as a prime candidate. Do I want to do it? Yes and no is the honest answer. But please allow we to state my case, as I know many readers know little about me. But folks, I am a fighter, and you will soon read about my battles.
Being a fighter stems from my childhood, having moved yearly, making me the "new kid in town," and thus a convenient target for bullies. Skipping the details, I never lost a fight if for no other reason that my survival depended on it. And I rarely used my fists, instead relying upon inherited wrestling skills to bring my opponents to bay. I abhor violence.
My first big victory occurred when I was 18 and facing conscription into the US Army. I just wasn't interested in participating with the US military in any way, and thus applied and received my 1-0 (CO) exemption from my draft board in Brighton, Colorado. I mention the Adams County seat as further example of my improbable victory because in November 1972 Brighton was clearly GOP Cowboy flag-waving country and that they found me sincere in my testament is simply amazing, believing this ragtag hippie standing before them, hippie hat in hand.
I could talk then and I can talk now. And much more was personally at stake than simply not getting my exemption because, having already decided to refuse induction, my obstinate stance would have translated into a two-year prison term at an Federal work prison located in the hot Arizona sun. To me the US Government was just another bully attempting to kick sand in my face. I regard Waymo and all the billionaires backing autonomous self-driving cars similarly. They don't intimidate me, knowing they are wrong and I am right.
In terms of my taxi resume, I have 35 plus years experience beneath the toplight. And brothers and sisters, I know abuse from all quarters, you name it I've had venom of every imaginal toxicity directed my way. It is something that only a cabbie can know, which is why well-meaning non-cabbies are not who we need to speak to those holding the keys to government.
If anyone wonders why I have written so negatively about the late Seattle Yellow GM Frank Dogwilla, in part it has to do with the many threats he made against me, disliking my advocacy for the commonplace cabbie. All of this threatening behavior was spoken minus witnesses, knowing better than advertising his poison. One afternoon he cornered me in a restroom after one of Craig Leisy's TAG (Taxi Advisory Group) meetings. Dogwilla snarled, the angry Doberman he was.
And of course the dishonest cops and deranged passengers were simply part of this kind of scenery. Only other cabbies can understand my pain, an agony I can translate, assisting government with understanding exactly who we are and what we need, demystifying what is confounding to the uninitiated.
But to be more specific, I led that ill-fated cab industry lawsuit against King County and their illegal maneuvering concerning their Green Cab initiative. Amongst the titles I held during that nearly two-year long battle was president of the Alliance of Taxi Associations. In short I was the appointed leader of over three thousand cabbies, the vast majority I never personally met but over the years guys would come up and thank me for my efforts upon their behalf. Though we lost due to King County out spending us, what I appreciated most was the trust many had for me, knowing how suspicious and paranoid cabbies can get, their belief in my credibility a true gift I have always valued. They knew I would never lie to them, which was true, only expressing the unvarnished truth of what we were trying to accomplish.
After that campaign, I was nominated to be a member of that ill-fated and dysfunctional political entity known as the Seattle & King County Taxi Commission. During my second year I served as Chair. It was a very extremely frustrating experience because we were a commission in name only, as no one in local government took us seriously, any concerns voiced by us were ignored. Knowing we had no real power, the attitude I encountered was worse than indifference, the commission treated like it didn't exist, and in real terms I suppose it didn't. Adding to the chaos were the non-cab industry members lack of understanding but that didn't stop them from being disruptive and unhelpful. My only benefit gained was viewing government from the inside. That was educational.
Parallel to this in time was my personal insertion into the State of Washington Department of Labor & Industry's new punitive fee structure initiative aimed at the entire State of Washington's taxicab industry. L&I were holding various public forums concerning their potential monetary requests, and after attending one in Renton, Washington, I realized how drastically the taxi industry could be impacted financially if everything L&I was proposing came into effect. A week later I found myself in Olympia as the sole representative from Seattle and King County providing evidence to the assembled forum.
Thankfully my testimony was compelling, because suddenly I was invited invited upstairs and found myself in a room with five concerned L&I regulators. The outcome of this meeting resulted in a request for half of what was initially projected. In a quick instant I saved the combined state industry millions of dollars annually. For my good work, BYG/Yellow Cab wrote me a check for $1,500.00 dollars. What would have happened if I hadn't personally intervened? Nothing good is the sad answer.
Add all this up, and I believe I can be effective. Add in my professional experience, as I was a psychiatric case manager when I started driving cab PT in 1987, you have someone who can speak to people in authority and power. Reaching back even further, for three years in San Francisco I was the poetry editor for a magazine with a quarterly circulation of 10,000 copies, this when I was a mere 23 year-old, further backing my assertion that I am a reasonably capable human animal, knowing when to bark, when to purr.
As I will be out of the country beginning December 9th, and not returning until January 19th, any interest in my proposal should be communicated by email: jbyello@yahoo.com. After that, you can call me at 206-778-0226.
My longtime companion, she who is known in these pages as "she-who-can't-be-named," calls me a "wildcard" and that is pretty much a correct assessment. I have at times scared the more conservative elements in the taxi world, misinterpreting my vigor and approach. My background is varied to the point that many find it confusing, certainly wondering how I ended up driving cab. I was once married to a millionaire's daughter. I've worked in psychiatric wards and ran half-way houses. I understand the high and low strata of life and society. I can reach the crazy, I can reach the sane and everyone in-between. Dogs and cats like me too.
Some will say that this informal application is merely confusing. But I say, to the contrary, I have accurately outlined who I am. And folks, you don't have half of my story but believe me I can make things happen. When I was in my cab, I was unstoppable. I made taxi happen down those rutted roads. I averaged 30% tipping. There are real reasons why I was generously tipped, and not merely due my wonderful smile and engaging personality! Could it have been because I was the quickest from Point A to B? Maybe.
How Many Cabs Does Seattle Yellow (PSD) Have?
It is disappointing to me that much of the information I get my from Seattle taxi buddies is sometimes less than accurate. More than one source said that Yellow's total number of operating cabs was down to as little as 130. A far more reliable source stated that as of November 2nd, 2025, Yellow had 265 cabs. Why the discrepancy? Emotion caused by too many years of powerlessness generated by associations and companies holding too much power over drivers and single owner/operators is the simple answer. Being powerless creates a variety of responses: resentment, anger, hatred, madness, rebellion, helplessness, all helping to explain why some of what I am told is not completely reliable. I encourage everyone involved to remember that real human lives are affected by decisions made. All we are is human. That reality should be respected when making decisions that have real impacts upon others. Like a pinball machine, with too much shaking the human brain goes "tilt" and stops working properly. Seattle's cabbies have endured much stress since 2012. It is bound to have an affect.
