Attack Cabbies! Attack! Before Local Regulators and Waymo Tie You to the Torture Rack---A New Inquisition!
The torture rack is an apt description of what is being done to the local Seattle/King County taxicab community. The torture rack, for all you devote Roman Catholics out there, was a rectangular wooden device with rollers at both ends used to stretch out a victim's body, something popular in Europe during the 15th-18th centuries, often connected to what is known as the Spanish Inquisition, when fatally questioning someone's faith was popular. Whether completely intentional or not, this is what is being done to you Seattle and King county taxicab drivers, stretching out your business model until it has thinned to the point of nonexistence. And will your screams be heeded by your anointed torturers? Not at all, saying you "Unholy practitioners of an Unholy art" deserve to be banished from the face of the transportation earth. And what will be your response?
To take the offensive then can be your only option. Part of that strategy, and only part, will be signing the petition that is currently in circulation, telling the City and County to reinstate the retired medallions and to make all the medallions real property. Please understand that this is only step one in regaining your rights as small business owners. Other necessary steps will be for each individual to contact City and County regulators, along with the Seattle Mayor, the King County Executive and all of the sitting City and King County Council members.
On the Washington State level, you must tell the governor about your concerns. In addition, contacting your local Federal representatives in the US Congress and US Senate will assist in your gaining attention. While yes, I can and will do this, I am at this point only one lone voice. If I register as an official industry lobbyist, that will help but most importantly are your thousands of voices waiting to be heard.
Again, your participation is essential. Without your participation, your ability to earn a living will disappear. Understand that across the vast waters of the Atlantic Ocean, that most established bastion of taxicab prowess, the London Black Cab, is now under threat by the same forces threatening you. Waymo and others care little to nothing about traditional taxi. Money is their goal. And their mantra is "Death! Death! to you cabbies! to the rack you go! Die! Die! Die! And we don't have to tell you why. You are filth, destined for the pig sty!"
While this all might sound melodramatic, there are companies out there with tens of billions of dollars endorsing new technology, that if successful, will not only eliminate 90% of American taxis but also eliminate human-driven Uber and Lyfts. As said, your only good option is to counter-attack. War has been declared, and you must defend yourselves. The battle has begun.
Its Wild! Out There Folks!
It is a "bang, bang shoot 'em all up world" out there in the City of Seattle, where it appears literally anyone can ply the city streets masquerading as a taxi or Uber, picking up passengers at will, and there is nothing and no one to stop you. My intent with my mid-August posting was to stir up some real response from City of Seattle and King County regulators but no, the renegade Red Tesla remains out there, picking up minus any opposition.
So go ahead, don't bother licensing as an official taxi or TNC (Uber/Lyft). Hell with that! Just jump in your car and start patrolling the downtown streets, soliciting as you go. You can even over charge your customers. There is no one stopping you. Sure, if you have an accident with a passenger in your car, there will be consequences but you can be assured that legal proceedings will take years.
So live it up! you gypsies you! It is no longer 2026 but 1886, lasso those people walking down the street, why it's a transportation rodeo---Yippy kai yay kai yay! there is nothing more left to say!
$5.00 for a Gallon of Gasoline is Cheap?
A taxi buddy told me he filled up for fifty dollars, getting ten gallons. That's at a "bargain" gas station. The cheapest here locally I've seen is $3.67.9. Two months into Trump's war with Iran, US drivers had already paid nearly 45 billion dollars more in gasoline cost than previously expected. Four months on since, I hate to think how much we have needlessly paid overall. The oil companies are making record profits, something like $460 million daily. Maybe time to buy Exxon stock. Or explore digging an oil well in your backyard.
A Mixed Endorsement: Iranin General Likes Cabbies
It would be kind of funny, the General's statement, if the situation of the war against Iran wasn't so damn serious but the Iranian general Mohammad Reza Naqdi, in reference to President Donald Trump, said something that is obvious to any one paying attention. Here is his quote:
"When he says something, he doesn't even think about what will happen 24 hours later. His statements have no foundation or consistency. I trust a taxi driver much more than I trust him."
I can only hope that the next time the good general rides in a taxi he gives the cabbie a good tip! But on the other side of the equation, Mister General, can the taxi driver trust you, you whose job it is is to deliver death and destruction? Perhaps you are not the best judge of character.
Martha Stewart Teaming Up with Waymo
In what might seem to be a kind of comedy, Martha Stewart is calling Waymo's newest AV vehicle, the Ojai an "home away from home." Let's hope it doesn't become for her a "casket away from the cemetery," somehow involving her in a fatal accident. What I find puzzling is that Waymo is using an electric AV made in China, given that Chinese made EVs are currently banned for sale in the US. How is that happening in a "Trump I Hate China" world?
Stewart is not kind when talking about taxis, saying a New York Yellow Cab puts its passengers in a crowded back seat behind a glass barrier with few amenities. "It's a pretty horrible experience." Her remark borders on the nonsensical. Taxi is all about efficient transportation, not serving passengers a three-course meal. What is she talking about?
At least she didn't make any comments about the cabbies themselves but I am sure she would not like their wardrobes, us cabbies not affording to shop at Walmart where you can find her latest fashion offerings, Martha Stewart "high-class" all the way, or Waymo, that is.
But upon truly close examination, Stewart's assessment is farcical, wanting everyone to believe that the Ojai is a kind of AV motorhome you would never want to leave. Maybe what her endorsement really says is that she and perhaps anyone has a price. Pay me enough and I will be your talking parrot. Martha, would you like a cracker?
Read How America Became Car Crazy: "Fighting Traffic---The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City" by Peter D. Norton, MIT Press, Paperback edition 2011
Why this book is so important, and I believe essential reading, is that it builds the story, brick by brick on how the United States became a car-centric nation, with cars claiming ownership of our city's streets. It is a crazed evolution, going from children using streets as their playgrounds to what I saw recently in Phoenix, Arizona: deranged drivers flying down the local freeways at 90 mph, heedless of the danger to themselves and others. Norton's well researched book tells the story of how we as a nation got to this kind of questionable scenario.
Once upon in America, back in the quaint olden days in the 1890s up to the mid-1920s, US city streets were viewed correctly as shared public property owned not by automobiles or by government but by a shared citizenry laying claim that streets were an essential public asset of every America neighborhood. But as cars gained popularity, the power dynamic shifted, automobiles and their backers literally shoving the pedestrian off from the streets, as a rural-centered nation became urban-centric, commerce and moving products swiftly down the road gaining priority over all other claims, progress, that New American religion overtaking all other contrary beliefs.
In some ways, this transition made perfect sense, this great transition from horse-propelled transportation to a motorized one entirely reasonable. Why trot when instead one could roar down the roadway? The same can be said with the airplane versus the train, railroads in 19th century America all important to the development of a trans-continental nation. But with the advent of aeronautics, especially the jet age rising in the early 1960s, boarding an jetliner in San Francisco bound for New York City far more sensible, 5-6 hours in the air compared to a 3-4 day-long train journey.
Norton's book is very comprehensive, and one might say, even obsessive in detail, telling how auto clubs, then Chambers of Commerce became the force behind the change that we live today. It is a story of how influence and manipulation imprinted the very roadmap in the societal, cultural brain that gained mass acceptance, with people saying "Yes, this is what I want," when without this pressure campaign, opinion might have weighted quite in another direction.
There are prominent figures in the book but one of my favorites is William Phelps Eno, a self-styled eccentric traffic safely advocate, formulating his "Rules for Driving" in 1903. Yes, Eno is responsible for the first driving manual. Given the prevalence of accidents at intersections, Eno developed the left hand turn, training drivers to maintain a given lane.
The book, all 262 dense pages of it, provides the reader with an easily understood overview of how America went from mowing down scores of innocent children playing in the streets to our modern cloverleaf freeways. If you can believe it, America's freeway system was developed to remedy roadway deaths, making for a safer alternative. We know how that worked out.
At least by reading Norton's book, you will be a wiser student to how America became what it is today. I am certainly a byproduct of that "hit the road" mentality that overtook the country, beginning especially in the early 1950's, with my father propelling us year after year across the USA in our green 1952 Buick Roadmaster. Driving by age 12, I was navigating freeways at age 14. It all seemed so natural of a transition, something instilled by design, intentionally making our car crazy culture appear normal. For years the US averaged over 50,000 traffic-related deaths every 12 months. That was, or is normal?
