Greetings From Toledo,Ohio:Taxi Is Death

Early Tuesday Afternoon in Toledo

Having arrived yesterday, I will be leaving on September 3rd, heading down to West Virginia, then into Kentucky, two states new to me.  Driving here I really enjoyed much of what I came across, including parts of South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa.  Northern Iowa can be damn beautiful, lovely terrain along with nice small towns filled with many ornate wooden houses.  Viewing the many old downtowns along my travels has also been fun.  Contrary to rumor, much of America is alive and well and thriving, yes, doing okay, thank you.  And many folks along my route have been downright friendly, even to a counterculture relic like myself.  Above all the noice and rhetoric, the majority recognizes that we are all equal citizens of our wonderful country.  "This land is your land, this land is my land....." sang Woody Guthrie, and its true, his words, his lyrics ringing genuine and true, a liberty bell minus any cracks. 

Now for an essay describing what taxi is really like for me and for the many others driving beneath the toplight.  I call it death because, for me, there is no other way to accurately describe what is essentially an inhuman experience.  While many jobs and occupations dominate one's life, taxi is a specter haunting body and mind, no fun for those tied to a nightmare never ending.  

After leaving the parking garage after my visit to the Art Institute of Chicago, I saw a taxi with a sticker advising "Call 311" to report the awful cabbie.  Catching up to the driver at an intersection, I was able to ask him about it.  He said, "It's the money.  They want my money!"  And I said, that's right, I can now call and say you have done anything, running me over, etc and they will make you responsible. "Yes," he laughed, "Yes!"   

And there you have it, the ongoing insult that is driving a cab.  Think you are gonna see that sticker on the back of Lyft and Uber cars?  No way, Mister Jose!

Taxi is Death

Driving taxi is a python, a boa constrictor squeezing the life out of you as ply the streets of any given city.  Why is that true?  Its due to two foundational elements that is taxi: a stressful work environment and a high overhead---a never ceasing request for your hard earned money, because taxi is all about money, both the money you make and the money everyone wants to take from you.  Whether you own or are leasing, you are liable for expenses from the beginning.  If you lease, you have your "gate" or "nut" plus all that gasoline to pay for.   And it's even worse for the owner, with insurance and dispatch fees hanging over you, along with local government medallion fees and costs, which in NYC can mean, even with the now celebrated "medallion loan" reductions, another $1200. monthly payment on top of gasoline and potential car loan payments.  More than just squeezed, it is a heavy weight crushing, pressing you into the ground.  These kinds of financial pressures can be overwhelming, destructive, sometimes leading to utter despair and suicide.  

Then there's the "human punching bag" working environment that daily pummels the cabbie, the taxi driver never forgetting that he/she is "public property" permitting anyone who wants --passenger, cop, fellow motorist---to abuse and attack and assault you in whatever fashion they wish.  Add the stress of working in a congested city dealing with traffic, pollution, unrelenting noice, excessive heat in the summer, icy roads in the winter, all of it tied with having to make the MONEY! lots of MONEY! to keep the taxi wheel turning, you have the living nightmare that is taxi, death on four rotating wheels, keeping you from actually living the peaceful life you deserve.  Taxi ain't heaven, it's hell!

What should be clear is that driving taxi is not truly living.  If it is, it is life encased in a moving metal box, a yellow coffin with a meter and toplight.  Since leaving Seattle August 13th, I saw the rising full moon transition from a glowing orange to yellow to a pure beaming white coloring the night desert sky.  In Montana while driving along a forest road, I was forced to stop for a herd of big horn sheep, fifty or more ewes and lambs crossing from one grassy pasture to the next.  The next day, also in Montana,  I woke up and walked a mile to Upper Potosi Hot Springs, having the pool entirely to myself.  What a beautiful, sunny morning it was, treading my way through golden fields.  In Iowa, after surviving a night filled with hail and driving rain, the eastern horizon a flashing light show much of the night, in the early dawn I stood next to a meandering river, unknown birds singing.  Further miles down the road, I found a trout stream bordered by flowering bushes---both orange and yellow slippers delighting the eye, thrilling the brain, the air clean and fresh.  And yesterday, in a kind of punctuation, while waiting at a light on Route Six in Edgerton, Ohio, a ruddy-headed perhaps eight-year old boy crossed in front of me, catching my eye and flexed his right bicep, an unexpected human communication.  All of this and more I would have missed if I had instead been in the damn taxi.  

Yes, driving the taxi is death.  Stepping out is life, and thank goodness for that, stormy weather, big horn sheep and flowering bushes embracing my life.  Thank you, thank you very much, drenching me with life!

Poem: 

August 21st Lost in Rockford, Illinois 

In the night,

my camp rained out,

my hair and clothes wet,

I drive east seeking shelter 

upon roads new to me, numerous

construction detours transforming 

vague notions into "I have no idea"

except continuing east toward Chicago

and a hopeful theoretical respite through

this infernal Midwestern downpour

reminding me, if I had ever

forgotten, I remain very

much alive. 

___________________

This was after yet a second night of torrential rain.  I found a motel and was glad of it.  Expensive but I was dry and able to dry out my tent.  

Greetings From Quincy, Washington: "Do Local Governments Understand The Taxi Industry?"

From the Eastern Washington High Desert

Day 2 of my sojourn from taxi to where I exactly end up I don't know but last night I camped in the Quincy Game Range, and at this very moment I am in the wonderful library that is the town of Quincy's public library.  Being open on Sundays, 1:00-5:00 PM is a boon for travelers like me wandering these sage brush hills.  And I now can finish what I began a few days ago in Seattle, an essay on why it is important to have officials who intimately understand what they are overseeing.  I use the example of David Trimble and his Roman Catholic counterpart and Noble Prize partner,  John Hume, to helpfully illustrate that essential point.  Having visited Belfast in 1991 and witnessed the many British troop carriers patrolling the streets, seeing personally how misguided bureaucratic meddling impedes rational outcomes.  Has the Seattle and American taxi industry ever had regulators taken directly from those plying the taxi streets?  Not that I know of, which is why our industry remains the mess it is.  Would you take anybody off the street, hand them a scalpel, and say "here, this patient needs a brain tumor removed, start cutting?"  No, of course not.    

__________________________________________________________________

"I believe that a sense of the unique, specific and concrete circumstances of any situation is the first indispensable step to solving the problems posed by that situation." 

David Trimble, from Northern Ireland, speaking in 1998 when accepting his shared Nobel Peace Prize

Intractable, Unresolvable Taxi?---The Misunderstanding of an Industry

I quote Mr. Trimble, he a veteran of "The Troubles" that afflicted Northern Ireland until the Good Friday agreement was signed in 1998, bonding Protestants and Catholics for the first time into a cooperative, power sharing government.  The above statement relates to the many experts saying that the Good Friday agreement could serve as a template for resolving similar sectarian conflicts but Trimble disagreed, inferring that each situation is in a sense endemic to its particular environment and circumstance, underlining how important it is to know the entire anatomy of the subject at hand.  If you don't know it, how then can resolution be reached?  A similar example is when police are called to intervene in an domestic argument, the officers suddenly finding themselves immersed into personal histories totally unknown to them, making each step forward fraught with danger.   Even when proceeding cautiously, the atmosphere is potentially explosive.   Knowledge then of every parameter is imperative if resolution is to be achieved.

This preamble brings me as to why the USA taxi industry is severely wounded and what should be done to stem the bleeding and subsequent infections.  Yes, in 2014, when municipal governments embraced Uber and Lyft, they began what has been the taxi industry's precipitous fall to where it is now.  But even before Uber's arrival, the industry was in serious trouble due to regulators essential cluelessness in how to effectively manage what was then America's most important 24 hour, seven days a week ground transportation system, taxi filling the gaps when the buses, subways and trains were not running.  This explains why New York City government promoted million dollar medallions, encouraging the innocent to make insane investments thus jeopardizing their future and personal finances, NYC not caring in the least any longterm consequences.  If real cabbies, like myself, had been involved, we would have put a stop to this kind of nonsense.  

When visiting NYC in 2010, a medallion broker offered me a medallion for $750,000. but said, if you want two, we'll sell them to you at $675.00 each.  Such a bargain it wasn't.  Any veteran cabbie knows that a medallion is only worth as much as you can make in a given year.  Most taxi drivers I know are making between $50,000 to $75,000 dollars per year.  Good money but in expensive cities like Seattle, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, that is little better than minimum wage.  Experienced taxicab industry professionals know all about this, which is why they are the ones who should be sitting in the City, County and State offices making the rules and decisions for their respective taxi industries, and not bureaucrats who have never driven a cab, no matter how well meaning they might be.  

One good, bad example I participated in was the Seattle/King County Taxi Advisory Commission, a great idea until you saw how it was put into practice, providing equal status to non-taxi driver member participants.  It was pure chaos, and even when appointed Chair, productivity was stymied by an inherent dysfunction sabotaging our every minute.  Nothing could have changed the situation other than removing the ordinary citizens off the commission but the City of Seattle and King County had their theories on how to manage the taxi industry, translating into the opening Uber stepped into.  The commission's taxi professionals were neutered, preventing anything good to occur or come to fruition, blocked from using what we knew for the betterment for both drivers and passengers.

So to answer the essay's title, do governments understand the taxi industry they are regulating?  No, barely at all.  And if they were interested in truly understanding it, they would recruit and hire people like me to run the show.  But that would be too scary, allowing a bunch of taxi renegades to infiltrate the Ivory Towers of non-functional government.  Why they might have to hire armed guards to watch over us, no telling what kind of efficiency we might effect.  All hell might break loose and customers would start getting their cabs arriving on time.  But that would make Uber very unhappy, and Uber must be happy, and never, ever sad.  No, you can't make Uber mad!

A desert haiku, August 13th

a rising full moon

coloring the night sky orange to

yellow to white.

Was Saturday July 30th, 2022 My Final Day In The Cab? I Certainly Hope! So & Uber Update: Profits, Losses And 4 1/2 Minute Response Times

Is It Really Goodbye?

Well I certainly hope so, with circumstances allowing me to take a few months away from taxi, and if other projects work out, like finally finishing my newest book and getting a good publishing deal, I will be permanently away from a world I first entered in September 1987.  I have too many good reasons to leave to ever want to come back to the thankless task that is driving cab.  Thankless?   That seems a harsh assessment because passengers do appreciate a good ride, often showing their appreciation by tipping me more than I warrant and deserve, along with verbally expressing an esteem for obvious taxi professionalism.  

While yes, that's great but my body has been telling me for a long time now that it is tired, that it needs a prolonged rest, and I damn well will be providing that, just exiting out of the cab for how many weeks a balm for body, mind and soul.  But if a miracle happens in October, and the resurgent Mariners baseball team makes it to the World Series, then I will be sorely tempted to come back and work what would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  Having early on worked a NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four Tournament here in Seattle, I would enjoy the exhilaration of being in the middle of a city-wide celebration.  It would be fun, something taxi has long ceased to be for me, fun.  Drudgery, yes but pleasurable, no.  Screw taxi?   Yes and no.

In the upcoming weeks and months, expect a different approach to this blog, shifting away from daily concerns to book reviews and even a serial novella, "The Five Thousand Dollar Cab Drive (Plus Expenses)."  For you Charles Dickens fans, you might remember that the majority of his books were published in weekly serials in the newspapers.  No tale of two cities here, but two states, Washington and Montana, and maybe three if you count Idaho's panhandle. 

The books I will be reviewing, in no particular order:

"Super Pumped---The Battle For Uber" by Mike Isaac

"Today In The Taxi"  by Sean Singer, poetry by a once cabbie

'Transportation Network Companies And Taxis---The Case Of Seattle"  by Craig A. Leisy.  My blog is quoted therein.  

I will also be writing short essays on all subjects taxi.  One possible title could be "How American Taxi's Inherent Criminality Welcomed Uber and Lyft."  Yes, stuff like that. 

Uber No Friend of Mine

Uber reported its first quarterly free cash flow of 382 million dollars since it started trading stocks in 2019, but it also had a quarterly loss of 2.6 billion dollars.  But what really got my attention was their 4 1/2 minute average response time from getting the call to picking up the passenger.  That is really good.  At one point not that long ago, the average passenger calling Seattle Yellow could expect a response pickup time of 5-15 minutes depending on which part of the city you called from.  Of course those days are long gone!  Whose fault is that?   The City of Seattle and King County for providing Uber an open passage to our customer base, thus destroying in mere months what took decades to build.  Oh well go to hell was their message.  And hell is where we reside with no place to hide!

New Haiku

thimbleberries a 

pleasant surprise reddening

my eager fingers 

_____________________________________

Most recently I have been walking daily in the Llandover Woods, 14499 3rd, Avenue Northwest, Seattle, and have been coming upon these wonderful berries, rubus paraviforus, in larger numbers than I have usually experienced.  They are very soft, breaking easily once picked, the juice reddening your finger tips. Yum!

 

 

With The Meter Running, My Passenger Goes Into The Store To Shoplift & A Surprise Airport Run, Not To Sea-Tac But Paine Field! & He Said, "You Made Me "Eat Crow"

The Taxi Getaway Car

Telling a passenger about this incident, I told her that if I drove for one thousand years, I'd still be encountering unique situations totally new to me.  Why that's true is simply the innate nature of the beast, as each new fare introducing yet another living and breathing member of that strange clan: the homo-sapiens.  As though much has changed since our first relatives exited the primordial ooze, billions of years later things unfortunately remain un-evolved, with our walking and talking modern humans little better than that first fish who decided to take a terrestrial stroll, light a cigarette and marvel at those dinosaurs dancing through time.  

The young woman on 26th East loaded my cab with too many huge bulging bags of dirty clothes and blankets and pillows, her intent being a ride to a local laundromat but first she need detergent, making the 22nd & East Madison Safeway her first destination.  Asking why she didn't instead choose a closer store, she said Safeway had what she needed, that turning into a truer statement than I could have imagined.  

Parked across from the main entrance, her quick excursion became five dollars, ten dollars, fifteen dollars as the meter ticked away.  Relieved to see her finally exit the store, she was suddenly confronted by three security staff, blocking her way, accusing her of taking items minus payment.  First denying the allegations, she decided it better to cooperate, with all of them reentering the Safeway.  Quickly following,  I demanded and received my $15.00 while promising to return all her clothes back to the beginning.  Back at the house, no one was pleased to hear the sad story, remarking that she was someone her brother brought in, and not welcomed in any real way.  Yeah, look what the "cat dragged in."

My immediate reaction was disgust, not liking my time wasted.  And if you are going make me party to an ongoing crime, shouldn't I get some percentage of the take?  Just make sure the soap is biodegradable.

Airport North, not South

I have always wondered if it would ever happen, getting an airport run not to Sea-Tac but to that other airport operating at Paine Field in Everett, Washington, and on a sunny Saturday morning, that's exactly what happened, the woman's Alaska Airline flight to San Francisco originating there.   With tip, the fare was $65.00, and curious, I escorted my passenger into the beautiful terminal welcoming all those interested in avoiding Sea-Tac International.  Yes, I was able to park the cab in the departure lane and not get screamed at.  Southwest Airlines I was told will be returning to serve Paine Field sometime soon, this new airport perhaps a better alternative for those living in north King County.  Traffic was a breeze!

And He Once Drove Cab in Savannah, Georgia 

The guy was trouble immediately, and I told him so, telling him he was a bit crazy, and unless he stopped mouthing off, I was pulling over and letting him out.  Curtailing his antics, he began telling me about his six years driving cab in tourist Georgia.  Dropping him off at his University District job site, and coming around to my door, he angrily announced that I had made him "eat crow."  My quick response was "I am a veteran cab driver and I don't take anything from anyone."  As a former cabbie, he should have known, and knew that my requests to him wasn't personal, only wishing him to shut up so I could get him to where he needed to be.  Let the driver drive is what I repeatedly say.  And it's true, behave in the back seat, and I'll get you there quick, guaranteed! 

And if you somehow need to be crazy, do it before entering the cab, getting it out of your system. I am your driver, not your psychiatrist.

Instead Of A Taxicab, Boeing Wants To Take You Downtown In An All-Electric, Self-Flying Pilotless Air Taxi & Where Did Destiny Go? & Twice On Sunday, Drivers Tried To Kill Me

Are eVTOL Electric Flying Cars Your Future Urban Taxicab?  

Yes, it's true, Boeing, in partnership with Wisk Helicopter Company, has developed an autonomous vertical take-off and landing fling machine dubbed the Cora, and sometime in the near future, it might do what standard cabs can never do: fly you over the traffic to your local downtown, bypassing all the vehicles jammed up on the freeways, freeing you like some kind of human bird taking you to your urban nest.  I recommend watching the videos at https://wisk.areo.  And Cora is painted yellow, just like its earthbound brethren.   Whether this happens anytime soon, I can't tell you, but unlike the flying cars in the  cartoon "Jetsons," there is the real issue of air traffic control and how to manage low altitude flying objects.  Wisk says Cora is safe, 1,500 test flights later.  Who wants to be a cab driver when Cora is around winking at you?

Women Continue to be Trafficked on Aurora Avenue North

Last week on a warm July evening there must have been 30 or more hookers walking on the west side of Aurora between North 95th and North 140th, almost all new faces.  What this tells me is what the City of Seattle continues to ignore: these women are being shuttled from city to city, trafficked by pimps.  And who was Destiny and where is she now?

Destiny (not her real name) was a young Turkish sex worker who I transported a few times from a seedy motel to a MacMansion in Redmond, Washington.  This big house had a big water fountain in the driveway.  On our rides we would talk about Istanbul, having been there  twice in 1999.  I never inquired about how she got involved in the sex trade.  But suddenly she was gone, alive, dead, I will never know.    Allowing this bullshit to continue is immoral.  Nothing more to be said.  God Damn! it needs to stop!

2 Near Serious Accidents

The first fool flew blindly out into the street, and without my quick reaction, I wouldn't be here typing. With my cab sideways, the idiot acted like he had done nothing wrong but my leaping out shouting got his immediate attention as he roared off.  When you almost kill me I expect some kind contrition, damn you!

The second incident, which would have smashed my driver-side door, appropriately occurred at the University of Washington Medical Center ER, when, as I was pulling out of the circular driveway, this huge out-of-service ambulance made straight for me, disregarding my right-of-way.  Slamming the brakes, I survived.  Looking on the bright side, I was mere feet way from medical care.  Lucky me!

The Uber Files: Analysis And Explanation---124,000 Company Documents Revealed---Criminality And Political Influence

 Thank You, Mark MacGann

On July 11th, the British newspaper, The Guardian, released a grand expose, what they call The Uber Files, detailing over a six-year period what Uber did to expand its transportation universe, using every tactic legal or otherwise to guarantee its success across the planet.  And the individual who leaked these many hitherto secret and concealed details is Mark MacGann, someone who served as Uber's chief lobbyist for Europe, the Middle East and Africa from 2014-16.  

I encourage everyone to view the 11:22 minute long interview with MacGann and a Guardian reporter.  I found it on the online edition of the Washington Post but where ever you find it, you will hear astounding admissions by someone once extremely important to the Uber hierarchy.  It's clear that MacGann didn't know what he had signed up for when he joined Uber.  With his current actions, he seems to present it as a kind of atonement for sins not totally of his own making.  It is a remarkable interview.  I also strongly encourage everyone to read the Uber Files for yourselves, and not depending solely upon my brief overview for the complete story.  There is much to know.

All this of course, Uber's incursion into the global taxi industry, is very personal, as I witnessed firsthand the City of Seattle's capitulation to Uber.  I raised the alarm but I was ignored.  When I wrote to one local Seattle Times columnist suggesting that something very fishy was occurring, to please investigate Mayor Ed Murray and his sudden welcoming of Uber, I was treated as some variety of crank, someone delusional and out of my mind.  Well guess what folks, The Uber Files provide a bit of vindication.  There was nasty stuff going on.

In the beginning, Uber entered the majority of its target markets illegally, intent upon destroying local taxi companies.  And to do this, they raised tens of billions of dollars from Wall Street investors to fund and subsidize their initial operations, targeting markets across the planet, CEO Travis Kalanick, aiming, like some new transportation version of Napoleon, to take over the known world.  

Lobbyist mark MacGann, fueled by all that money, had easy access to the world's political and financial leaders.  At the World Economic Forum held at Davos, Switzerland, Uber met with many important folks including Emmanuel Macron, Joe Biden, Irish Prime Minister Edna Kenny, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, and with George Osborne, then UK Chancellor and six other Tory Cabinet Ministers.  Many of these contacts were done in secret, unknown until now.  The Washington Post features a photograph with a smiling Mark MacGann and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.  

And not stopping there, Uber made deals with the world's underbelly, cutting investment deals with Putin's good buddies, various Russian oligarchs.  All of this orchestrated by Kalanick, not caring about consequences, and if Uber drivers were attacked and beaten by angry cabbies, "Violence guarantees success!" was his response.  

Further payments went to prominent academics to produce dubious research supporting Uber's economic benefits.  And when authorities raided Uber headquarters in France, Holland, Belgium, India, Hungary and Romania, Uber had a "kill switch" shutting down all their computers, hiding all incriminating evidence. 

I hope this quick synopsis gets you interested in reading more.  Uber wasn't nice, and is that truly new to anyone paying attention?  No is the answer. 

 

Uber's 2019-20 Sexual Assault And Traffic Deaths: Alarming & How Yellow's 4-4 Shifts Served Local Ridership & Traffic Jams In London & GM Driverless Cruise Cars Block San Francisco Streets & First Long Fare Of The Year: Ephrata, Washington & Avoid Seattle's Municipal Court's Online And Telephone Hearings

Is it Wise or Safe for any Woman to Ride Solo in an Uber App-Assigned Vehicle? 

Last week, Uber released 2019-20 statistics stating that, for that two year period, sexual assaults were down 38 %, 3,824 compared to the 5,981 incidents reported in the 2017-18 time period.  This is an improvement?  Uber said they had 141 penetration rapes and 998 sexual assaults in 2020.  Why is this happening?  Maybe due to the type of applicant drawn to Uber.

During the 2019-20 time period, 500,000 prospective drivers failed criminal background checks, with an additional 80,000 drivers removed after deeper scrutiny of who they were.  And this is the company that was welcomed by every city in America?  Pretty crazy, and disappointing.  

And when Uber drivers aren't doing something awful to their passengers, they are crashing their cars.  I haven't found Uber's accident statistics but 101 people were killed in car accidents. 

Only using my over three decade long experience in Seattle/King County's taxi industry as a record of events, we have had almost no fatal car accidents or rapes during all these years of millions of taxi rides.  Uber and Lyft have been operational now for about 10 years in Seattle/KC.  It would be interesting to know the parallel statistics taxi vs TNC.  

What is the primary difference between taxi and Uber/Lyft?  Taxi drivers are strictly regulated and the TNC drivers are not.  Another factor is that our local Seattle taxi industry is operated by mostly people raising families, individuals very much interested in the success of their children in this great land of opportunity called the United States of America.  Many TNC drivers are instead single, young men who are still forging and creating personal identity, this fact unfortunately perhaps making them vulnerable to worst instincts.  Local cabbies I know are then more purposeful, that trait translating into a better kind of professionalism not always connected to the average TNC driver.  While taxi certainly has its issues, many of which I shout about, it is a better choice for a safer and saner ride to where ever the passenger might be going, hopefully a version of Heaven, not Hell. 

The Good, Old Days of Defined Shifts

Before Uber nearly destroyed the taxi business model, at least in Seattle you were reliably assured to be getting a cab 24 hours a day anytime you needed one.  Why was that true?   Because the Yellow fleet had over 550 cabs operating 24/7 in two very defined 12 hour day and night shifts.  And the shifts, 4 AM to 4 PM, and 4 PM to 4 AM, recognized business reality, day shifts getting the early morning airport runs, while nightshift serving the crazily busy bar rushes.  All the cabbies made money and all the passengers got their cabs.  But now, since those kinds of shifts have disappeared, so has the reliability, leaving customers stranded all over the city and county.   Logically, we need some kind of limited return to the shift model.  Otherwise, 1-2 hours wait times will remain commonplace.  And that's not good, no, not at all. 

Traffic Reality in London, UK

Traffic in one of the world's biggest city is always bad but a nationwide transit strike on Tuesday June 21st, 2022, created untenable jams.  In a June 22nd NY Times article reported by Mark Landler and Eshe Nelson, they quote a London cabbie who knows all about London's traffic:

"Abraham Aris Ryan, 56, who has driven a London taxi for more than 20 years, said, "It's an absolute headache.  A fare you'd normally do in just 20 minutes is more than double that now.  I'm having to tell people I just can't get them there."

Ah, yes, the joys of driving cab, London, Seattle, everywhere. 

General Motors Cruise Cars Block San Francisco Streets

Thanks to my buddy Jake in San Francisco/Berkeley, he alerted me to new problems associated with the upcoming rollout of GM's driverless taxis in San Francisco.  Yes, that's correct, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) last month approved GM's application to have cabs minus human drivers operate in the "Golden Gate City."  But given what happened on June 28th and 29th, official protests are being voiced after twenty GM Cruise driverless cars stood motionless for two hours at the intersection of Gough & Fulton Streets.  A little bit later, on June 29th at 12:30 AM, four Cruise cars sat idling at Fell & Masonic through multiple light cycles.  The twenty Cruise cars had to be removed by real human drivers.  So what happens if you get into one of these autonomous taxis late for an appointment and suddenly, it stops, what do you do?  Cry?  Scream?  Start walking?  

$477.20 Account Ride to Ephrata

My first long taxi fare of the year happened on Saturday, originating at University Hospital and up and over the Cascades on I-90 I went, then crossing the mighty Columbia River to the Grant County seat of Ephrata, WA.  What made this somewhat unusual is that it was an account meter run, and not a flat-rate generated fare, taking the passenger home after his two-week stay in the hospital.  After dropping him off at about 10:00 PM, in the darkened town I found Time Out Pizza, 1095 Basin Street SW, to still be open, and ordering a vegetarian pie to go.  Friendly place, and great food for the road.  Total drive time was 7 hours.  Cheapest gasoline I saw was $4.78.9 at George, Washington.  

I Just Paid the $75.00

Damn was it frustrating this morning, trying to do my 10 AM Seattle Municipal Court hearing over the telephone.  The recorded message was confusing, and once I got through, it was apparent I could be on the telephone for hours listening to all these cases heard before mine came up.  No thank you to that nightmare.  Whether guilty or not of being in a bus lane, I said "screw it" and paid over the telephone.  What a pain!