Vaccination Mandate For Seattle Yellow Taxicab Drivers & New Hopelink Computer Software Issues & Almost Time To Welcome Back Our Canadian Brethren & When The Cabbie Can't Do Anything Correctly

A New Directive from Puget Sound Dispatch (Yellow Cab): Be Vaccinated by October 15th

Yes, that is the message sent to all of us drivers.  By October 15th, 2021, you must show proof that you have received one of the three COVID-19 vaccines (I have the Johnson & Johnson) or you are bounced off all account fares.  Last week, you might recall, I recommended that all Yellow cabbies transporting COVID-19 positive passengers be previously vaccinated, removing the potential danger faced by non-vaccinated drivers.   This directive takes that one step further by applying this limitation to all variety of account fares, stating that if you are not vaccinated, you will no longer be eligible to serve account-based customers.  My only disagreement is the obvious elimination of free choice; instead, thinking an option of applying for religious and medical exemptions be made available, something appearing to be acceptable both societal and nationwide but evidently, not at PSD.   Other than the date, where everywhere else the deadline is October 18th, I agree that for everyone's safety, you should receive a coronavirus vaccination of your choice unless you qualify for an exemption.  The one positive for our customers will be that non-account passengers will receive a quicker pick-up.  The negative, unfortunately, with fewer qualified drivers available, this new mandate will translate into slower pick-up rates for our account customers.  Guess you can't have everything, and in this case, you certainly won't.  

But to be clear, backing PSD's overall stance are the latest COVID-19 statistics, grim as they are stark.  Current USA total cases are 44,681 million. Total American deaths are now 719,000 out of a total October 13, 2021 USA population of 333,484,850.  Total State of Washington cases stand at 689,484, with 8,152 dead.  King County total cases currently are at 156, 822, with 1,905 confirmed deaths.  All this says that if you are working with the public as we cabbies are, it makes complete sense to be vaccinated against COVID-19.  Currently, the national daily death toll is just under 2000.   

Hopelink Software Ills

From all reports, Hopelink's transition to new dispatching software has both account passengers and PSD psychically tearing out their hair, as addressing and scheduling issues have plagued the new system for about the last three weeks.  One example is the new software program insisting that the address for Kasier Permanente (old Group Health) is 125 16th Avenue instead of the actual 125 16th Avenue East.  For those unfamiliar with Seattle streets, the incorrect address places the hospital over a mile away from its actual and real location.  On Tuesday I got a screwed up Hopelink call that had the passenger located almost 2 miles from where he was actually waiting, Harborview Hospital, on First Hill, when I was in Zone 180, the "Westlake."   This kind of mistake is making few people happy but given Hopelink's cavalier history of taking no responsibility for anything, will they now admit there is a problem here of their own making?  Stay tuned.

Biden Says to Canada, "Com' on in!"

Finally, beginning sometime early November, our Northern neighbors will be allowed entry into the USA upon proof of a COVID-19 vaccination.  This new order also applies to our friends residing in sunny Mexico.  The only catch for Mexican citizens is that most of them have been vaccinated with non-WHO approved vaccines, primarily Russia's Sputnik V and China's CanSino vaccine but those who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine are considered to be fully vaccinated and fully eligible for entry.  The State of Washington will be glad to have all those crazy Canucks back, attending Seahawk games and of course, riding in Yellow Cabs.  One important suggestion for my fellow cabbies is, like me, obtain a USA passport card just in case you find a Canadian needing to get back up to the Far North.   Fares to Vancouver do happen.  I got one way back in 1989 upon a Christmas Eve night.   A good trip to be sure. 

Warning to All Cabbies: Displaying Any Emotion is a Cardinal Sin

I had the oddest interaction on Monday when belled in to pick up a passenger at a local hospital, something I have done thousands of times.  This time the elderly woman was escorted by a nursing assistant, whom I immediately noticed, appeared to be in some kind of dazed state of mind.  Taking charge, I got the passenger to the curb and out of the wheelchair and to the cab. While doing this, she handed me two purses. I placed them on the back seat, and while helping her into the cab, one fell over, the contents emptying onto the rear floorboard.  This is when I noticed that the NA had fixed me with a "hard" stare.  Odd but there you have it.  

Once having the passenger partway in the cab, she said she couldn't straighten her leg, something very common with older folks getting into the cab. Turning around, there was that same fixed stare, prompting me to say, "Here, you do this," that is, assist the lady into the cab.  In almost every similar circumstance, that what the escort does but this time around he asks the passenger if she still wants to ride with me.  She then says no, along with questioning, "Are you drunk?"  Have you been smoking (marijuana)?"  Assisting her up, I notice that the NA is just standing there, prompting me to maneuver the wheelchair so she can sit down.   And what does he do?  He leans into the cab to see if anything remained on the floorboard, this after I had clearly put everything back in place.      

What this kind of situation tells me is something I already know, that a cabbie's credibility is instantly questioned, and worse, your behavior criminalized, you are now drunk, stoned and who knows what else. God help me and all other cabbies if we take offense concerning odd or strange or inappropriate behavior directed our way, somehow everyone quickly embracing the validity of caste, with the cabbie now the untouchable, the godless dalit.  And all I was doing was assisting the woman into the cab.  Should she instead of been placed in a wheelchair van?  Perhaps but first a real attempt should have been made instead of making the woman wait once again for transport home.  Sunday night, a passenger at the same hospital waited 2 hours before I turned up.  It is not good nor fair to make these elderly customers wait and wait for the cab.  It's not appropriate, it's not moral.

The Only Thing Keeping Me Alive

As I am getting too old (age 67) for this taxi nonsense, I am finding the only remedy keeping me going are epsom/mineral salt baths, sometimes taking one in the morning and one at night, the evening bath often induing sleep.  Am I afraid of drowning?  No, more than happy to drift away embraced by fragrant hot water.  

NYC Cabbie Medallion Crisis & INNOVIZ Technologies---Full Page NY Times Ad & City Of Seattle Towing Away The Poor & PSD Driver Behavior Review Committee & No, I Don't Want to Be Yellow's General Manager

Too Much Owed by NYC Cabbies

Once again, the fiasco that is the overvaluation of New York City's taxi medallions is in the news, as a new effort to undo the damage done by New York City government and medallion financial loan companies takes hold, with a proposal stating that all of the outstanding, egregious loans be reduced to an "across the board figure" of $145,000 per medallion.  Even that sounds like too much but when you understand that medallion values were artificially inflated by up to over one million dollars per medallion, it was simple economics leading to the many loan defaults across NYC's taxi community.  Many owners have outstanding debt loads of $500-800 thousand dollars, with loan payments of over $4000.00 per month.  This of course is unsustainable for anyone.  And all of this is made worse by the reality that the NYC government promoted it, making impossible promises of great riches to immigrant drivers new to America, not thinking that they would be lied to in the great, old USA but misled they were, and now they are in dire straits, with little option save death, something a number of drivers have decided upon, killing themselves.  One can only hope that this new effort to reduce the debt burden will succeed, and as the pandemic ends, NYC's taxi industry will see a new and robust revival.  Here in Seattle, medallion value once reached $245,000 but as I told everyone, that was pure fantasy.  What are they worth today?  One thousand dollars.  Maybe.

Big NY Times Ad by Israeli LiDAR Company

On the back page of the NY Times Business section, Friday, October 1st, 2021 paper edition, is a full page ad populated by NYC's famous Yellow Cabs, something grabbing my attention and curiosity, making me wonder, who the heck is INNOVIZ Technologies and why are they spending big money for this advertisement?  The text is as follows:

                                                                     Human error

                                                                     causes over

                                                                      20 million

                                                                     car accidents

                                                                       each year.

                                                                       And you're

                                                                     worried about

                                                                        cars driving

                                                                       themselves?

            Innoviz's LiDAR Technology see sthe world in ways humans simply can't.

                                  Check out $INVZ on the Nasdaq or Innoviz.tech

                                    INNOVIZ TECHNOLOGIES        Autonomous driving

                                                                                            is safer driving

I'll let you imagine all those Yellow Cabs whizzing down Manhattan's streets.  LiDAR stands for "light detecting and ranging," which is some kind of laser technology.  INNOVIZ, a small company based in Israel, is trying to drum up investor money. They have 320 employees.  The have one big time customer, having joined BMW with developing its BMWiNext Series.  What do I think about all of this?  Teach people how to really drive a car, education the key, not handing out driving licenses to the unprepared. 

She Was So Upset

A last fare yesterday was this poor, older African-American woman who had her car towed away by the City of Seattle.  Why?  Something to do with her license plate.  Now it was going to cost her $300.00 to rescue her car from Lincoln Towing at 122nd & Aurora North.  When the meter hit $10.00, I told her that was enough, and she began crying, my very human gesture recognizing her distress causing tears, she thanking me.  If you don't think systemic racism doesn't exist, dye your skin black and get back to me after one month.  That should do it.  

Bad Cabbie Review Committee

Yellow Cab/Puget Sound Dispatch has expressed interest in my idea of bringing misbehaving cabbies before a hearing conducted by their peers.  We are just entering the planning stages.  I think this can be a much better answer than firing drivers even though they might deserve it.  Let's give them the opportunity to reform and see what happens.  I think, after listening to reason, a driver's behavior will change, transforming the guy into a new and improved cabbie.  It is worth the effort because a good cabbie is a critical human asset not to be wasted or thrown away but someone to be valued and retained.  

Too Late for Me

I had to laugh out loud when a leading member of the local Sikh community said that my name had been mentioned as someone they would like to see  running Yellow, replacing the current General Manager.  I laughed, saying I am trying to get out of taxi, not deeper to where there is no escape.  At one point, yes, I would have been interested but now, no way, no way.  And besides, I said, David Friend doesn't like me, my operating style abhorrent to him and others. As I keep yelling silently, "LET ME OUT OF THIS INSANE ASLYUM!"  And that's how I really feel. Enough already. 

 

     

                                                                    

                                                              

 

Transporting COVID-19 Positive Passengers In The Taxi & Progressive Insurance Dispute Resolved & Bakersfield Update & Shake Your Flabby Booty? Insane Antics On Aurora Avenue North & Passenger Expectations & A Bakersfield Portrait In Rhyme

 Last Week I Transported A Coronavirus Passenger to Goldbar, WA

My most recent COVID-19 tested-positive passenger originated from Kirkland's Evergreen Hospital, a medical facility I haven't picked up at in at least ten years or longer, rarely finding myself anywhere close to Zone 411 (Totem Lake), it not making much sense battling the usual heavy traffic on I-405 to get there.  That day I just happened to drop off a regular customer of mine at her dental appointment, and since the offered call was .02 miles away, I accepted it but not knowing it was yet another coronavirus-infected passenger, this lady making my sixth such variety of customer.  

Given I am vaccinated, and double-masking both me and the passenger, while also properly ventilating the cab, I feel I am taking a very minimal risk, if any risk at all, providing rides to those who really need to get home or to a quarantine shelter.  What makes the quarantine passengers so inviting is the extra $50.00 King County adds to the fare, something designed to calm the soul and soothe the anxious brow.  

But in this case, as with accounts other than the King County one, there was no such added surcharge bonus.  I have asked Yellow/Puget Sound Dispatch to explore the possibility of our other major account customers also providing a "risk fee" when requesting transport of COVID-19 patients, a kind of monetary acknowledgement and thank you.  And it does remain a potential risk for many of the drivers because this kind of fare is offered to our entire pool of drivers minus warning or notice, PSD not restricting the fares to vaccinated drivers only, something I have suggested more than once.  

To me, the liability issue for PSD is immense, because, if in theory a driver does get infected while transporting a virus positive customer, and dies, or perhaps worse, spreads the virus to a family member, with that person succumbing to the virus, I think it would be hard to defend PSD's current policy.  And to that point, it would be very wise to limit these kinds of fares only to fully vaccinated drivers, thus avoiding the needless hazard of endangering everyone involved.  

As to my Goldbar customer, she, like two others I have given rides to, was in denial that she was virus positive, saying she was only dealing with kidney stones and nothing else.  The ride out on Highway 2 was very pretty and enjoyable save for some heavy eastbound traffic near Sultan.  Being in Sultan brought back many memories, as I once lived there for a few months back in 1973 with my cat Sniffer, having then only recently turned 19 years old, and was at that point attempting to understand just what the hell I was doing.  The house was maybe a hundred feet from the railroad tracks, and I always appreciated that Sniffer was wiser than me, staying clear of those many rumbling trains passing by.   Only a young fool would move next to an active railroad.  That Sniffer and I could sleep through all that clatter was a gift of nature, thank goodness we were able to ignore the penetrating roar. 

Progressive Says I am not Culpable

This morning I got an email from a Progressive Insurance senior supervisor informing me that I hold zero responsibility for the recent accident I have been dealing with over the past few weeks.  It was a very friendly letter and I responded in kind, only interested in my declared innocence and vindication and little else.  But since the issue of damage was brought up, I will be getting an auto body repair estimate on the wound inflicted upon 1092.  That Crown Victoria is one tough car, lots of steel making it more impervious to damage than other cars.  

My personal car, my wonderful 2012 Chevrolet Sonic, would have been demolished in a similar collision but "Taco" does contain 10 airbags, hopefully pillowing the passengers from serious injury.  Thank you Progressive, for your conclusion, and if there is a next time, I will not delay in writing up an accident report and creating an accident diagram, being busy no excuse for not doing what is obviously necessary. 

Sad News Concerning my Sister JoAnn

I am very glad I was able to visit my sister over that recent six-day span as JoAnn passed away yesterday afternoon at 12:12 PM in Bakersfield, two Stage-Four tumors taking her away less than two months after her initial diagnosis.  She was 76, and born in 1945, the second of four children.  JoAnn was responsible for my first car driving experience, when in 1967, when I was age 12, she insisted I get behind the wheel of her beautiful 1955 Ford and drive down the road.  Scared, I made it a total of one block before putting the car in park and leaping out of the driver's seat.  Later that year, "dear old Dad" made me learn how to drive, this time in our 1952 Dodge Cornet.  RIP JoAnn! and thank you for taking me to the movies in Denver  1962-64 and buying me all those one dollar Woolworth's pizza slices. Who ever knew Elvis Presley was a boxer?  Or that Vincent Price would introduce me to Edgar Allen Poe?

Some Local Seattle TV Station Needs to Take Live Footage of the Ongoing Madness

I couldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself, last week seeing this prostitute wearing nothing covering her buttock, turning to the ongoing traffic and "shake, shake, shaking" her butt for all the world to ogle, a kind of "live-in-your face" advertisement for what you too can enjoy if only you would hire her for your personal pleasure.  Not that her buttock was in any way worth viewing but there it was in living color, whether wanting to see it or not.  

The situation on Aurora Ave North is getting fairly wild, with new hookers taking over for previous sex workers, new troops for the sexual trenches.  Does this make any sense?  Where are the Seattle Police?  Where are the King County Sheriffs?  This is nuts!  Shall we start calling Seattle the "New Amsterdam," and even there, in ribald Holland, these kinds of antics aren't happening.  Will it ever stop?

Passenger Expectations 

The passenger complained when I showed up a mere nine minutes late for her scheduled time call taking her to Sea-Tac International Airport and her flight aboard British Airways winging her to France.  As I told her, nine minutes late ain't nothing these days but here is the problem.  Customers are calling Seattle Yellow Cab all hours of the day and night with the old expectation that we are a fully operational twenty-four company, and when they find out the opposite, they complain.  Why do I have to be the one to tell them that we have been crippled, handicapped by a series of events over the past 7-8 years that were and are completely out of our control?  Did this particular passenger understand my explanation?  Maybe because she gave me a nearly $10.00. tip.  I liked that.

Bakersfield in Rhyme 

Merle Haggard and Buck Owens waving hello from the grave, while static filled AM fundamentalist Christian radio warns don't become Satan's slave,

be instead be a Cowboy road racer flying down Bakersfield's 151 square miles of streets and roads, like a mad hatter, like a Wild Mister Toad,

disregarding the reality of red lights and what makes sense to the common everyday woman and man, shouting I don't give a rats ass because I am a free Trump-loving denizen in our great American land,

shooting my guns bang! bang! bang! all objections be hanged and strung from the Great Oil Derrick floating high in the western sky, taking all the Colorado River's water to irrigate my carrots, grapes and 

lemons too, because out of the desert we have created a city bright and expansive and completely new, another kind of thinking, a combination of Mexican tequila and Budweiser beer fueling our unique human 

zoo, and we don't care what you say, we will drink unleaded gasoline straight and do what we gonna do, minus any Liberal crying, so please go soak your heads you damn assholes, straight into the nearest loo.  

 

 

Very Quickly, Greetings From San Francisco International Airport: What Is Normal?

Sitting here at the airport, and the race is on, can I get this posting done, edited and published before boarding at 9:05 AM, and what if anything do I have to say about taxi that will impart new knowledge upon the taxi hemisphere?  Nothing, I have nothing to say other than the new PSD policy having everyone paying monthly for their AT&T tablet services is a pain, my taxi colleague Rick reporting his tablet, the ability to get calls, went blank at 12:30 this morning.  Not nice, no, not at all.  Always something going wrong or astray in the wild, wild, wild world that is taxi driving.  Something good was a GEICO Insurance radio commercial touting the routing skills of cabbies, which I will repeat here once I can find the radio ad script or audio online.  It was astoundingly accurate which is rare when anyone other than a cabbie talks or writes about taxicab as it is and as I know too well. 

My time in Bakersfield and Tehachapi was at times confounding, bewildering and exhausting, dealing with situations unfamiliar and perplexing while attempting to get the cooperation of the various people involved with my sister's care and wellbeing.  It also didn't help that my sister has not been taking care of commonplace business for years, for instance not removing her husband's name on bank accounts, etc, even though John died in April 2009.  And adding to all this was my sister's off and on incoherence, simple decision making becoming something more than difficult but impossible, putting my poor brain in a spin.

But a huge positive, from a dining perspective at least, was the discovery of a very good Chinese restaurant, the Great Castle, located at 410 Union Avenue, Bakersfield, telephone number 661-325-3311, surprising me with some of the best Chinese Mandarin cuisine I've had in years.  As I find in my various travels, you never know, and if passing through Bakersfield, I highly recommend you find the joint and eat to your Chinese food heart's content.  And they seemed to like me too, one of the older waiters patting me on the back as I left yesterday evening's meal.  Why?  Maybe tipping but it seems I was the rare customer ordering "real" Chinese food.  Yeah, I've eaten Chinese 'round the world, and if I ever have the leisure time and opportunity, it would be fun writing a book concerning all my many thousands of Chinese meals here, there and China, Hong Kong and Saigon everywhere.  I still remember the canned Chinese food my mother would sometimes serve in our mobile home, La Choy and Chun King brands serving up overcooked and bland ersatz Chinese  Awful, truly awful American pretend Chinese food.

Greetings From Bakersfield, California, Population: 379,000---Home To The Most Craziest Drivers In All The USA & Progressive Insurance: What Are They Doing?

Bakersfield, CA, Home to Organic Carrots and Nutty Drivers

I'm in Merle Haggard's home town assisting with a family crisis, as my second oldest sister, JoAnn, now finds herself in palliative care due to a recent cancer diagnosis.  I arrived late last night and visited her this past afternoon.  Tomorrow I drive up to her house in Tehachapi, located up a desert mountain, meeting with a real estate agent, and Katherine, someone from JoAnn's local Catholic Church who has been helping my sister over the past month.  It is heartening to see community involvement joining in when a neighbor requires a helping hand.  Tehachapi is a small town, perhaps that explaining the kindness and care exhibited.   

But one Bakersfield community feature that isn't so nice is the deranged driving style embraced by nearly everyone, a standard 50 MPH speed limit upon ordinary streets encouraging true foolishness, folks more or less "drag racing" from light to light.  I've witnessed some dumbbell driving in our USA, especially in Los Angeles and Michigan but these automotive clowns might be the worst, Bakersfield's streets a nonsensical circus.  I now gun my VW Jetta rent-a-car off the line when the signal turns green just to avoid being crashed into.  The drivers here are truly vicious, out for blood.

I did notice three Bakersfield cabbies sitting at the airport as I drove away.  If I had noticed them earlier, I would have stopped by and chatted, curious what it must be like driving cab here, and now that I know, how the driving conditions are.  Ya gotta be fast to survive around here!

And know when you buy those "Bunny Luv" organic carrots at your local natural food grocery or organic produce section, know they were grown here in Bakersfield kissed by the desert sun and kept moist by water flowing in irrigation canals.  Where nothing should grow, everything does.  Ask Bugs Bunny.  He'll tell ya all about the California vegetable miracle story, almond trees drinking up all that precious water.

Boy, was I surprised!

Waking up yesterday morning, I got a call from my Progressive claims adjustor telling me I was being held liable for the accident I described last week, when the driver wanted me to die.  I was dumbfounded because it defies the known laws of physics, that when I was barely moving and the woman comes flying up beside at me at an angle, on the wrong side of the road, and hits me.  "No, no no!" I howled, this is not going to be!  

In one sense, I have only myself to blame because it took me two weeks, meaning this morning I finally filled out my online Yellow/PSD accident report.  And speaking of howling, I hounded my Key Insurance agents, fully expressing my displeasure with how this was being handled by Progressive.  To call me angry and disturbed by my own insurance company essentially telling me I was lying, that I am a liar,  that I made up this story, was, and remains beyond belief.  Someone at Progressive must have gotten my message because, later today, I received a email requesting that I fill out a diagram of the incident.  Now that's it more like it, and how it should be done. 

Anyone who knows me knows I'm an honest fellow, and if I had caused the accident, I would have fully admitted it.  It is that simple.  And when filling out the report, I only then noticed that the other driver's insurance info was expired.  Was she driving without insurance?  I wonder.   

Aftermath Of An Accident: "I Hope You Are T-Boned And Die! I Want You To Die!" & Who Are Serving Hopelink Customers After 6:00 PM? Anyone? No One? & Poem

Hit on South Atlantic Street

It is a small expectation, one would think, when turning left upon a familiar street, a turn done thousands of times, that proceeding forward unhindered would be the commonplace result but no, this time it had to be different, my simple wish for unimpeded motion suddenly quashed by the completely unexpected appearance of a frenzied driver flying through the intersection eastbound in the westbound lane, rudely bumping poor 1092's nose, bruising his left side just above the wheel well, the crazy lady scratching her car's right passenger side from one end to the other.  Why she did this, you would have to ask her but one thing I do know for sure is what she, after exchanging information, said, that is shouted at me, shaking like the proverbial leaf, and I quote, "I hope you are T-boned and die!  I want you to die!"  And that isn't very nice, is it?  Obviously not.  Oh, ain't modern life grand, everyone having such a good time in Seattle-land. 

After hours Hopelink? Good luck!

Now with Farwest Taxi's curtailed evening hours and Hopelink not wanting to deal with our overseas dispatch, how will Hopelink's evening and early morning clients ever get home?  A surprised University Hospital nurse was startled when I told her I wasn't her patient's cab.  Did the mother and infant ever get home this past Saturday night.  Don't know but I do care.

Poem

Title: "Again, Poetry"

Placing words upon the poetic page

a hopeful anagram----collecting, combining

letters and words into a literary endeavor expressing

what? the issue and problem,

merely made more difficult when not requesting 

slippered feet scampering down couplet avenues

to stanza heaven, or is it Hades---words, elusive words

bedeviling the unamused practitioner,

Marianne Moore's toad sticking out its tongue,

laughing at you.

___________________________________

Please note:  This is not my intended structure but the damn computer won't let me do anything else, goddamnit!  For reference, see and read Moore's poem "Poetry."  And maybe the toad will become a frog sitting upon a log, loudly croaking, croaking through the fog shrouded pond. 

And "slippered feet" would be traditional meter used to dance and prance down the metric line, ever so fine! for the Victorian English mind!

Uber's State of California Proposition 22 Ruled Unconstitutional & Tesla's Autopilot Accidents And Future Of Autonomous-Driving Vehicles

 "The entirely of Proposition 22 is unenforceable." says Alameda County Superior Court Judge Roesch

On Friday, August 20th, Judge Frank Roesch, a Superior Court judge in Alameda County, California, ruled that the 2020 California voter initiative known as Proposition 22, a law  passed by a 58% vote margin after a $200 million dollar promotion campaign paid by Uber, Lyft and other TNC companies, was ruled unconstitutional (violating the State of California Constitution) and unenforceable because it limited the California Legislature's ability to organize and access worker's compensation by requiring a 7/8ths supermajority to amend the proposition, something viewed as impossible.  Anyone familiar with how government functions in the USA knows that the most stringent majority requirement is usually 2/3rds of the elected body, a 7/8ths requirement something straight out of a autocracy, something that might make a Stalin or a Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) smile in appreciation. What Proposition 22 accomplished was abolishing California Assembly Bill 5, a law recognizing gig workers as employees.  No, no, Uber and Lyft didn't like that, a concept undermining their ability to keep the drivers corralled and pinned beneath their corporate thumb.  

In further explaining his ruling Judge Roesh wrote "A prohibition on legislation authorizing collective bargaining by app-based drivers does not promote the right to work as an independent contractor, nor does it provide minimum workplace safety and pay standards for those workers. It appears only to protect the economic interest of the network companies in having a divided, un-unionized workforce, which is not a stated goal of the legislation."  He could not have stated it any clearer, dismissing the lie that Proposition 22 would enhance gig workers lives.  In a survey of 500 California gig workers, only 10 percent have received the promised health care subsidy, that is, a mere 50 out of 500 individuals. 

In a published comment, University of California-Hastings Law Professor, Veena Dubal, said that the TNC companies "erred in trying to completely take away the right of legislatures and municipalities to do anything on behalf of workers, as well as trying to take the workers out of the state workers' state compensation system."  

It is clear that Uber and Lyft are doing everything they can to survive because they remain on the verge of failure, of disappearing completely from the transportation landscape.  Uber lost $6.77 billion in 2020 and $8.51 billion in 2019.   Lyft lost $1.75 billion in 2020 and $2.60 billion in 2019.  Ther rates charged to riders have gone up 92% from January 2018 to July of this year, 2021.  As of this July, their overall workforce is down by 40%.  

A good, bad example of what is occurring was the fellow I took home from 2nd and South Jackson Street to his place on the 900 hundred-block of 10th Avenue East.  Uber quoted him $60.00.  My meter read just over ten dollars.  It is the wild, wild west and now the taxis are winning the fare-based shootout.  Hurray!

Tesla's Potentially Fatal Autopilot Operating System

Pre-pandemic, us cabbies sitting at the train station argued about how we would or wouldn't be replaced by autonomous or robotic cars, vehicles not needing a driver to safely operate.  Finally, after a more or less hands off policy, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is opening an investigation into the at least 11 accidents involving Tesla's Autopilot system, the crashes killing one woman and injuring a total of 17 people.  It seems the Autopilot has a knack for running into emergency response vehicles parked on the side of freeways.  Not a good thing.  

And what does it mean concerning the replacement of cabbies by completely hands-free vehicles?  That it isn't happening soon, if at all, is the answer.  Despite all the previous media hype, our society is years away from that science fiction reality.  Instead, like in Germany, teach people to really learn and know how to drive a car.  Do that and we will all be safer, happier and wiser.