Old & New Year Taxi Tidbits For Your Reading Pleasure

I never seem to have enough time to finish the basics, often requiring that I just leave the country to get anything done.  I am leaving for Mexico January 25th and this time I am taking the laptop I am currently working on.  I may be dumb but I am capable of learning my lesson. So given time constraints, here in rapid-fire time are some important taxi bulletins for your examination and consideration.  More background could occur later, all depending on time and space.

BYG Taxi Medallion Lease Reduced

In a meeting yesterday, BYG agreed to reduce the medallion lease rate by $400.00, a 40 % subtraction from the initially agreed upon $1000.00 per month for City-only cabs; and from the initial $1200.00 for Dual-plated (City & County) cabs.  All in attendance agreed this was a fair and equitable adjustment. Also agreed upon was the need for improved dispatch and driver professionalism.  Efforts in those areas will be made in the next ensuing months.

According to King County Licensing ,Uber & Lyft Pays for Driver's For-hire Licensing

Further clarification allows me to tell you that TNC companies pay 10 cents per City-based trip and 35 cents per County-based trip for their driver's licensing fees.  What I do not know is whether Uber and Lyft are paid back by the drivers.  So then, for Uber and Lyft drivers, their for-hire license appear to be free, not costing them anything.  If Uber and Lyft are paying these fees without re-compensation  then it appears there could be an employer/employee conflict contradicting driver independent contractor status.  How this was negotiated into law is certainly a mystery to me.  If I am wrong, I wish someone would tell me otherwise.

Renewal Fingerprinting No Longer Required

Very good news indeed is that we are no longer required to be fingerprinted yearly.  This policy change shows that KC is responsive to comments.  It is good to see a responsive agency working for all concerned, for the public good.

Sea-Tac Audit Out

This news requires more time than I can give it today but here are the basic facts.  PSD was found to have erred in reporting out-bound trips but in conclusion Sea-Tac admitted to its own accounting deficiencies.  PSD will have to pay approximately $900.000 in unreported income while admitting no wrong or intent. Yellow Cab contract will continue through June 2016. A new RFP will be issued.  As I said, this is a very "bare-bones" report to something requiring more examination and reporting.  In the meanwhile, check out the articles concerning this on the web at seattle times.com, pi.com and geekwire.  All three sources help fill in the gaps.

PSD/BYG Still Charging for Taxi Training

It doesn't appear to make sense, given that Yellow needs drivers, for them to continue charging for training that was once free.  You would think, as I have said more than once, that Yellow would have learned its lesson by now  but evidently not. My only comment is, "Com'on guys, wake up, will ya!?"  Enough said!

I will end with a kind of New Year poem written by Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) in 1830.  Enjoy the muse and its various poetic views!

A Spirit Haunts The Year's Last Hours

A spirit haunts the year's last hours
Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers:
       To himself he talks:
For at eventide, listening earnestly,
At his work you may hear him sob and sigh
       In the walks;
       Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks
Of the mouldering flowers:
    Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
        Over the grave i' the earth so chilly;
    Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
        Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

The air is damp, and hushed, and close,
As a sick man's room where he taketh repose
        An hour before death;
My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves
At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves,
       And the breath
       Of the fading edges of box beneath,
And the year's last rose.
   Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
      Over the grave i 'the earth so chilly;
   Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
      Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.