An Apology

A friend at Yellow Cab called this morning and told me that I had gotten it wrong, that the failure, the Saturday morning system crash,  is more correctly directed at DDS, the computer system contractor and not Jim and other dispatch folks who during that time period were attempting to resolve the issue.  Jim was on the telephone for hours with DDS consultants. This is all good news and I apologize for any and all misunderstanding. A reporter is only as good as his sources.  I spoke with many people before I issued any conclusions. My clear mistake is that I didn't speak with the person primarily responsible for dispatch operations. I promise that I will not make that kind of Journalism 101 mistake again.  I was also told that the responsibility for the mentioned telephone system outage which I thankfully missed was due solely to telephone provider failure. Now in this instance I fully admit I was reporting from purely anecdotal reports and I certainly won't repeat that error.  With the computer failure I did my best at the time with sources I trust.  Clearly when a serious issue appears I will be delving more deeply into the matter.  All I ask then is complete candor from everyone involved.  I neither wish to disparate or mislead anyone.  In part I have called this blog "factual taxi" as opposed to fictional.  Everything I print here must be true "so help me God."  So to that end I will endeavor to double-check and verify beyond doubt any and all information and facts before imparting them to you my reading ( and taxi) public. I am pleased to report that I have had nearly 8000 hits or readings since I began.  Taxi drivers literally from across the taxi globe are reading the blog.  Comments from India and elsewhere are coming through. I do appreciate the support and response. In saying that I again repeat it is of utmost importance that I get it right. You are depending on me for complete accuracy and I will do my best to guarantee that.  And coming back to the incident itself I hope this inspires a new and broader communication from dispatch itself.  When failures of this magnitude happen we need to be told the details as soon as possible.  We are extremely interested because this is our livelihood.  I know that all of the drivers and single owners are supportive of dispatch and its employees.  Together forward and united we will succeed.  In that spirit I conclude wishing everyone involved the best, including that sometimes less than cooperative computer system.  May we all experience error-less function.  Wouldn't  that be great?