The Big Changeover Of Flat Rate For Hire Vehicles Into Taxis: For Hire Vehicle Conversion Guidance & A Letter From The NY Times Metropolitan Diary & Everyone Should Read The 2023 Trip Advisor Seattle Yellow Cab Reviews & Down Farwest Taxi Memory Lane

You Have Until March 31st, 2026 

On March 15th, 2024, Seattle and King County sent out a link to all flat-rate for hire medallion owners outlining what is going happen by March 2026: all flat-rate for vehicles will become taxis. This quote makes it clear: "The decision to convert is permanent and irreversible."  I am sure they expressed it that way intentionally, knowing full well that denial is the commonplace response in the taxi industry.  The link also contains an application to convert the medallion from flat-rate to taxi.  The link's 4 pages contained some very straight forward information, like telling applicants that a dispatch company is required and that meters or smart meters must be installed.  What I found most interesting is the statement that all flat-rate for hire vehicle medallions will remain the same, unlike taxi medallions that will become regional.  If your medallion is King County only, your taxi medallion will be the same.  Doesn't seem fair but who asked me? 

Finally, A Taxi Hero

What I have here is a complete letter written to the New York Times "Metropolitan Diary" concerning my kind of cabbie.

"Give Him a Hand"

Dear Diary,

I got into a cab on a rainy night to go see my child's nanny in a play on the Lower East Side. I had an umbrella, my bag and a tote with me.

When I got to to the theater, I got out of the cab quickly and forgot my tote. Oh, well.

Just before the play started, the driver appeared, walked to the front of the theater and asked whether anyone in the audience had left a tote in his cab.

It's mine, I shouted.

As I got up to retrieve it, he received a standing ovation.

Seattle Yellows Cab's Puget Sound Dispatch is Awful 

In these pages over the many years, I have written many times just how bad the dispatching has become at Seattle Yellow Cab. If you don't believe me, here are a few complaints taken from the "Trip Advisor" website.  I encourage everyone to read the many reviews blasting Yellow Cab.  The positive reviews concern cabs picked up at the airport.  Note, not dispatched.

from Elizabeth A---Terrible Issues, October 2023

"I tried several times to get a taxi to pick up my family (me and my grandson), but every time the taxi cancelled.  After three hours I gave up, but missed my bus and was stranded overnight."

from Sean A---Don't. Garbage Company, June 2023

"I book a Yellow cab to take my friend to the airport.  I watched our assigned driver pick up someone else and proceed to drive off on their tracking map, while telling me that we had been picked up on their web app.

This resulted in missing our flight.  Never waste money with these frauds. We ended up using Uber, which, while more expense, at least delivered the service.

This is why taxi companies deserve to die out."

___________________________________________

Pretty harsh reality expressed here. Elizabeth is stranded and Sean misses his flight.  The fault here lies with the City of Seattle and King County.  I have told them time and again that they had to do something about the poor and inefficient service provided by Puget Sound Dispatch.  They act helpless. They can't do anything, they keep repeating to me.  Doing nothing is not the answer.  There are too many reviews like these.  People are being greatly affected by the idiotic service that is PSD.  It's true!  It's obvious!  It's factual!

Farwest Taxi 1990

Sunday, walking back to my car after visiting the DT Seattle Art Museum, I spoke to the doorman working the Hilton Hotel.  Back in the day, he and his father owned 7 Farwest cabs.  We talked how great the business was at Farwest back in the "good, old days."  But he said, along came the Punjabi Indians and they destroyed the company.  I saw that too.  Sad but true, the Punjabis, in their greed, blew up a great company.  It didn't take them every long.  In that way, they were very efficient.

25.5 Million Dollar Judgement Against Atlanta Taxi Company & Unaffordable Seattle---Hwy 520 Tolls Going Up in August & A Trip Back In Taxi Memory: "I Am Going To Take An Axe And Chop Off Your Head" & Finally, Seattle Is Number One In Something Worth Celebrating

If We Needed One, Another Story As To Why The USA Taxi Industry Fell To Uber

As commonplace as taxi at-fault accidents causing serious injury, or even death are, the accident occurring on August 29th, 2003 in Atlanta, Georgia, was anything but usual, caused by a interconnected chain of events featuring incompetence, hubris and plain stupidity that exemplified the American taxi industry then and now, indifference the prevailing theme.  Just last week, a 25.5 million dollar judgement against Atlanta United Express Cabs was awarded o the husband of a passenger killed back in 2003.  The main obstacle to a much earlier court settlement was the State of Georgia's DOT's (Department of Transportation) legal actions over the years, denying any culpability due to the accident occurring on a rainy night upon a poorly maintained and designed roadway.  DOT took their arguments all the way to the Georgia Supreme Court before finally getting the ruling they wanted.  The facts of the case are as follows.

On August 28th, 2003, the day before the fatal accident, the driver, Aballah Adem, took the cab in to the Atlanta Taxi Bureau for the car's semi-annual inspection.  The car was passed and deemed safe even though both rear tires were bald, and in obvious violation of the measurable minimum tread depth of 2/32 inches. Compounding this error was the inspector himself, seven years on the job, and not knowing or understanding legal tire tread requirements.  Aiding his incompetence was both the driver's and cab company's failure to notice the faulty tires and replace them.  

Fast forwarding to the next day, August 29th, Adem was transporting a female passenger on her way to a $500,000 a year job interview.  Adem lost control of his cab on the rain-slicked highway, veering across three lanes and running into a tree, where his passenger was unfortunately catapulted out of the cab and decapitated. Yes, a very horrible and very avoidable accident.  Further insult was the sentencing of Aballah Adem, on August 23rd, 2005, when, after pleading guilty to vehicular homicide, he was slapped with probation and a mandatory defensive driving course.  That was it.  That was his punishment. 

Without much further comment, I know that all my readers understand the underlying implications to this story, highlighting the obvious.  The American Taxicab industry deserves what it has gotten, and whether it understands that the deathknell is tolling for thee is doubtful, very doubtful.  Their ears are plugged, their eyes covered but unfortunately their mouths and tongues are still rattling away.  Who wants to hear their prattle?  Not me, not me.  

Seattle Used to be Cheap

But not anymore.  Soon drivers on State Route 520 (the Evergreen Point Bridge) will be paying a peak $4.95 on weekdays, and midday rates of $3.95 M-F.   The bridge thanks you!

He Has a Sharp Axe

A few days ago, as I was mailing a letter, I heard a honk and it was "H", a taxi colleague from my earliest days dating back to September 1987.  My first meeting with him was unforgettable.  I was parked behind his all black-colored taxi on the Olympic Hotel cab stand.  While leaning against my cab, some idiot teenagers ran past, with one slamming his hand on the black cab's trunk.  Out leaps "H" and this is what he said:  "I am going to take an axe and chop off your head."  This of course was a remarkable statement but alas, he did not chase after the kid and behead him,  Not saying he didn't deserve it but a jury trial first was to be recommended.  I like "H".  He is "something else!" 

We Are All "Slim and Trim" in Seattle

The USA obesity rate embraces 42% of the population but not in Seattle.  Seattle is rated the leanest town wearing the skinny crown.  Interestingly, all the "too heavy" cities reside in the South.  Too much grits?

Waymo Expands to Los Angles And Bay Area Freeways & Yellow Won't Pick Up At 100 Crockett Street & Warning About Cabbies----Not A Ringing Endorsement & For-Hire Numbers Have Reached the One Hundred Thousand Figure

The California Public Utilities Commission's (CPUC) New Questionable Decision

Despite the Mayor of Los Angeles' protests, the CPUC has opened up parts of Los Angeles (and the Bay Area) roadways and highways to more Waymo robotaxi service.  This expansion means that the driverless cabs will be able to zoom along on LA freeways at 65 MPH.   As someone who has extensive experience driving LA roads, I call this a recipe for disaster.  The CPUC ignored the February 6th accident in San Francisco, where a Waymo cab struck a bicyclist.  Thankfully, the injuries were minor. 

The City of Los Angeles pleaded with the commission to wait for State Senate Bill 915, currently under consideration, giving California cities more regulatory ability to control their own streets, to see if the bill passes but no, said the CPUC, we can't do that.  All it is going to take is for the next Waymo accident to be fatal, then everything will stop.  Will the CPUC apologize?   I don't think so. 

You Are Not Going to Get a Cab at Queen Anne Manor, so Why Even Try?

A once regular customer of mine has moved to senior housing on the top of Queen Anne Hill, the address being 100 Crockett.  When I was driving I  picked up there many times but no more it appears as Yellow cabbies are refusing to pick up there despite numerous requests.  Why?  Because they all assume it is just some old lady going to a grocery store, meaning it isn't worth their time to pick up the customer.  This is an old story and it isn't going away.  Nothing happens to a driver who throws the bell away.  No one cares. Not Puget Sound Dispatch.  Not the City or King County.  No one cares as the elderly customers sits and waits, waits, waits for the never arriving cab.  I care.  Do you?

Criminal Cabbies

Here is a quote from a NY Times article, "US Warns Spring Breakers Headed to Mexico, Jamaica and the Bahamas,", reported by Vjosa Isai: "A lot of times, there's not a lot of gap between criminals and taxi drivers in many countries, so using a trusted transportation provider is huge."  This from Scott Stewart, Torchstone Global Security.   Isn't that nice, jump in a Jamaican cab and get robbed. Wonderful.  Nothing like crime to go with your suntan. 

So Much for the Good Old Taxi Days

A taxi buddy, when trying to renew his TNC (Uber/Lyft) for-hire noticed that the new licensing numbers have reached over the one hundred thousand driver figure.  Does it mean that there are now over 100,000 TNC drivers in Seattle and King County?  Probably not but the TNC drivers certainly surpass the past number of cabbies operating in Seattle and KC.  At most I think we had 3000 cabbies at any one time.  As I will tell anyone who asks, this is why Uber and Lyft were allowed to break the law and eventually destroy the local taxi industry.  It is all about money, and all those new for-hires are generating big money for the county.  Who cares about a professional cab service?  No one is the answer. 

Update On The Murder of RediCab Driver Nick Hokema & The Silliness That Is The Seattle Business License & Car Insurance Rates Are Up

 Is The United States Army Afraid They Are Going To Be Blamed for Hokema's Murder?

Two days ago,  in a Tacoma New Tribune article reported by Craig Sailor, it was announced that US Army Specialist Jonathan Kang Lee is now considered an official suspect, if not THE suspect.  For those new to this story, it appears that Lee stole Hokema's cab after murdering him, driving the car to Redmond, Washington, where, two weeks later, he was found hiding out in a house.  At the time of the murder, Lee was considered a deserter, having left Fort Lewis on January 14th five days prior to his scheduled trial on the 19th for sexually assaulting two underage children, ages 6 and 7.   In a KOMO news release, Nicole Sharkody, Hokema's girlfriend asked why Lee hadn't been held in custody, which is a very good question considering, that after Lee's desertion, he was convicted in absentia and sentenced to 64 years in prison.  Given that Lee knew he was facing what is essentially a life sentence, why didn't the US Army hold him in confinement?   One must ask if the US Army hadn't mismanaged Lee's case, their mistakes leading to Hokema's death. 

Since evidence seems to be reaching this conclusion, I think this could be why Lee's arrest remains shrouded in mystery.  Let me remind everyone that the US Army's history when it comes to justice is far from pretty.  In 1970, the journalist Robert Sherrill published his examination of military justice, "Military Justice is to Justice As Military Music is to Music", which outlined the sometimes horror story that is military administrated law.  This doesn't mean that justice won't prevail in this case.  It only might mean  that everything might move very slowly, frustrating all interested parties.  The US Army is BIG Government.  It has its own rules. 

In an email, Craig Sailor told me that Lee's abandoned vehicle was found in DuPont, Washington, a town about 15 north of Olympia, Washington.  This fact adds further mystery to the question as to how and why Lee ended up in Hokema's cab.  It would seem, if Lee entered Hokema's cab in DuPont, that it was a dispatched call, unless of course he had dropped off in DuPont, and Lee hailed his cab.  

DuPont to Tukwila is about 36 miles.  Redicab rates are a $3.00 drop, then $4.00 per mile along with 75 cents per minute wait time.  Minimally that would make the fare to the SouthCenter Mall at about $147.00.  What happened once they arrived at SouthCenter?   It would seem surprising that Hokema would not have already asked for upfront payment, given the amount owed.   Another question is, if Redmond, Washington was Lee's ultimate destination, why did he direct the cab to Tukwila?  I hope to see these kinds of questions answered in the upcoming weeks.  

One last important point I want to make is to remove the fallacy that driving cab is a simple, straightforward occupation.  Nothing is, or could be further from the truth, from functional reality.  What cab driving is is an immersion into active culture and society, every passenger entering your cab a living, breathing specimen of the human experience.  Whoever that person is, whether sane, insane, wonderful or monster, they will be sitting inches behind you.  This is not simple.  This is a complex equation.  And sometimes it all doesn't add up properly, instead blowing up in your face.  That is what taxi is really like.  It's not fiction.  It's not a movie.  It's palpable reality.

Hard to Believe But the City of Seattle Doesn't Care How Much You Made Last Year,

You still have to pay the business license applicable to the previous year.   For example, let's say the previous year you made $25,000 but this past year you made $100.00, the City of Seattle will still demand the fee connected to the higher amount.  Why?  Because this is just how the City of Seattle does it.  Doesn't matter whether it is either fair or logical.  I found this out by paying the smaller fee request.  I suppose this somehow makes me delinquent,  suddenly an alienated teenager clad in a black leather jacket leaning against a wall, cigarette hanging from my lips.  Is this a good/bad example of how the City of Seattle is run?  Yes, it certainly is.  

As You Cabbies out there will have noticed,

your insurance rates have gone up dramatically.  But you say, I haven't had an accident of a ticket in 20 years.  So what is this response, why are rates being raised.?  The insurers don't care and they don't have to.  No explanation necessary.  You either pay or you don't drive your car.  That's just the way it is.  Isn't it fun owning a cab? 

Whoa! Stop! Don't Spend $10,000 For A Seattle Taxi Medallion & Opaque Uber: Why Is It So Hard To Communicate With Uber? & It Is Past Time That The City Of Seattle And King County Create A Readable Website Explaining Step By Step How To Be A TNC (Ride-Share) Operator & After 45 Years, A NYC Cab Driver's Last Fare

 Do Not, I repeat, Do Not Spend Ten Thousand Dollars for a City of Seattle Taxi Medallion!

I found out today that the owner of multiple Seattle taxi medallions sold a medallion for $10,000.  As most know, these days, Seattle taxi medallions are essentially worthless.  I sold my City 1092 medallion for $1000.00, basically giving it away to someone who really needed it.  Why then was some willing to pay so much for the medallion, committing themselves to $500.00 monthly payments for the next 20 months?  Because the desperate soul found himself banned from both Uber and Lyft.  More on that later but it exemplifies the unholy power Uber and Lyft hold over their so-called independent operators.  They have the ability to destroy lives.  And do they care about consequences affecting a dismissed driver and their family?  No, they don't, and don't believe it when they say they do, "crocodile tears" streaming from their TNC eyes.   

The problem with anyone newly committing themselves to driving taxi in Seattle today is that the local industry is moribund, unviable, a sinkhole collapsing upon itself.  The big money making opportunities are gone expect when working events like big-name concerts and Seahawk NFL football games.  All the big money-making accounts are either dead or so diminished that it makes little sense to work them.  The easy days of averaging $30-40.00 per day are long gone, leaving today's Seattle taxi operator with what?--- unending big expenses the sad answer.  

What are taxi expenses compared to Uber and Lyft?   Taxi insurance is going to cost you $5000.00 per year compared to $1400.00 to $2000.00 annually for Uber and Lyft  That makes insurance your only real TNC upfront cost other than your monthly telephone bill.  While yes, TNC dispatch takes out about 40% out of each fare, it is nothing compared to the $195.00 Seattle Yellow (Puget Sound Dispatch) asks for each week.  From my experience, Uber is so busy, allowing you to make $300-500.00 daily translating into you not caring how much money is extracted from each fare.  Who cares?  In Seattle, the "fat and sassy" TNC driver has no need to care.   

As I have written before, the average Seattle cabbie must make $18,000 before they make a penny for themselves, taking 3-4 months to earn it.  All those hours, all that real sweat and blood expired on the taxi road.  As for the guy paying $500.00 monthly installments for this new medallion, add $6,000 to that $18,000 for the first year, adding up to $24,000.  The second year, it will be $22,000 before he has earned a dime.  Painful.  Awful.

Also not to be forgotten is the $1000. plus to paint the car yellow, that's if he has one to paint.  Otherwise, he is looking at buying a car for between $12,000-20,000. Then of course there is the yearly maintenance  like tires and monthly oil changes.  All this for the privilege of working yourself to death.  Anyone thinking this is funny is morbid.  This is nothing but death while breathing.  There is no other good way to describe it.  You are a dead man driving in your own motorized yellow coffin.  Your ignorance is your eulogy. 

What I am saying is that the exploitation of the Seattle cab driver must end, including the complicity of the drivers themselves.  Over the decades that I have been a part of this industry, company owners have  often been too ruthless in their treatment of the drivers, viewing them as so many easily replaceable parts.  This appears to be driven home once again by Puget Sound Dispatch's attitude stating that making money is our only goal, operator well-being simply not a priority.  

All of this is given a "blind eye" by a very theoretical Seattle and King County taxi regulatory leadership.  How can anyone condone the expenses associated with cab ownership?  I've stated this before that all this is immoral.  Sitting twelve hours piloting a cab through Seattle's traffic is no fun.  Try it for one shift and you will agree.   This is not a good way to earn a living.  Again, death is upon your lips, death your mascot, death your unwanted friend. 

Is There Anyone I Can Talk To?

A friend's recent ordeal of being suspended from Uber says everything bad about their communication and methodology.  The messaging told him he didn't have his required TNC for-hire permit.  The problem was, he had done everything he was supposed to, and for some unknown reason, Uber hadn't forwarded his information to King County.  He was blamed, made responsible for something not his responsibility.  He was also temporarily knocked off the Lyft platform because they hadn't received his DDC defensive driving test results, not realizing they were not automatically sent to both companies.  Not very computer savvy, he had difficulty reaching Uber's callcenter, and when he did, he was told that his van was no longer eligible, that he needed a EV to continue driving Uber.  Of course this wasn't true.  What kind of real regulatory oversight is provided by the City of Seattle and King County. None whatsoever is the real answer.  Get banned by Uber because a passenger said you winked at her?   Just the way it is, buddy, you're burnt toast.

But Joe, We Already Have that Step-By-Step Website

I wrote to my favorite King County (truly a nice guy) regulator telling him that a very detailed TNC "how to apply" website is necessary.  A major reason why my friend encountered so many bureaucratic obstacles is because he didn't know how to start, and when he did, he took some wrong turns.  I checked out their website and was not impressed, KC making assumptions the applicants knew what they were doing.  Anyone long associated with the cab industry knows that's a false postulation.  Instead, thinking that the individual knows little to nothing is a more correct stance.  

Beginning with the title, it should be some like "SO YOU ARE INTERESTED IN BECOMING AN UBER OR LYFT DRIVER?"   Ask any any Uber driver what the acronym TNC stands for, and I bet the vast majority won't know.  "Spoon feeding" the applicant the necessary information is the only way to avoid confusion.

Not only does the County need to be clear how the TNC/ride-share for-hire process works, the County needs to follow the process from beginning to end, concluding with the operator being issued their for-hire along with a car decal.  In my roughly one-year-long association with Uber, nothing is what I received.  

The more specifics the better.  Write the website in a way acknowledging that the applicant has been in the USA for abut twenty minutes.  Communicate in the simplest terms.  Then, and only then, will the applicant understand.  And even then, he or she might require assistance. 

Ending on a Softer Note

In the February 25th New York Times "Metropolitan Diary," a reader says he grabbed a cab from East Harlem to the Upper West Side, during which the cabbie said this was his last fare.  The passenger thought he meant it was his final ride of the day but "No, you don't understand.  You are not my last fare for the day.  You are my last fare forever."  Turns out the cabbie had been driving for 45 years in New York City and this indeed was his last fare.  Hopefully the passenger gave him a good tip, like say a million dollars.  That would be about right, after all those painful years.  But this is really like cab driving as it truly is. The guy could have been the best cabbie New York City had ever known but his exit causing no fanfare or celebration.  Nothing was noted, nothing was said except this chance encounter very accidentally pointed out.  Just like taxi as I know and hate it.  Good luck, sucker!

Greetings Again From Seattle: How The Unending Bias Against Taxi Drivers Influences Police And Media Coverage & Update On Tukwila Cabbie Murder & RT Taxi Ride Yellowknife, NWT To Seattle And Back & Chinese Cabbie's Lament & Cancun Cabbies Keep Attacking & I Am Selling My Yellow KIA

Disgusting Police Bias

I have been back in Seattle since February 6th, a Tuesday but the following day began exhibiting sign of some kind of serious influenza/viral infection.  The following Monday, soon after a clinical appointment where I was refused medication, I developed a non-stop cough along with other symptoms leaving me with a physical state I have never before experienced: I thought I was going to die.  Understanding I needed instantaneous relief, I consulted Dr. Wang, the most effective (and most expensive) acupuncturist and Chinese medicine physician I know of.  Though not licensed to practice "western" medicine in the USA, he has a medical degree from Chinese, effectively utilizing both schools of knowledge.  If possible, I wanted to avoid hospitalization, though sometimes infernal sources of even worse infections.  Thankfully, after a couple of treatments, and drinking many foul-tasting cups of herbal medicine, I appear to be on the mend, thus allowing me to even begin writing again.  Such misery I have never been acquainted with.  It was, and continued to be, scary.   I wouldn't wish this illness on anyone save a politician, especially one or two now prominent upon the national and international stage.  Given their ages, they might not survive, their departures not troubling me in the least. 

The ongoing investigation of the Tukwila/SouthCenter cabbie murder dating from January 14 has gotten me thinking about the overall treatment of taxi drivers here in the United States.  Though a suspect has been found, as of this date, no charges have been filed.  Much more on this later but one fact I soon discovered about driving taxi way back in Sept 1987 is that cabbies were considered worthless.  Exchanging my weekday role of psychiatric case manager to weekend cabbie told me everything I didn't want to know concerning societal attitudes.  Not did I suddenly have less value, worse, I was expendable.  Having no experience perviously with the police, other than being the sole staff member working at psychiatric half-way houses, I was shocked at the treatment received, getting pulled over for nothing whatsoever, and then, after stupidly defending myself, issued tickets for contrived and made-up violations.  It was a revelation never forgotten.  The police hated me and hated all my fellow cabbies.   Why was this true?  What was this bias all about?  

When punishment is your goal, someone must be punished, and that someone is usually considered diminished or of lesser value, be you a black teenager or a criminal cabbie.  Why criminal?  Because everyone knows the cab driver is willing to do anything for a dollar while breaking every traffic rule in the hunt for that dollar.  You know and I know that's true.  The police certainly do, explaining why it was a constant battle to maintain your driving license, you the "toplight evil" menacing society.  

Media bias in America is less clear.  While at times making efforts to thoroughly cover a particular taxi subject,  overall indifference is what I have seen and experienced.  Once the initial sensation of a cabbie murder is over, coverage rarely continued, the details of where, how and why losing tenor.  Cab drivers are not important cultural actors unless you are someone like the composer Philip Glass, graduating from the cab to the symphony hall.   If my newest book takes off, I assure you that much commentary will be as to why I drove taxi when "look how well he writes."  It is predicable.

Tukwila Cabbie Murder Update

It has been 37 days since Olympic RediCab driver Nicholas Hokema was found dead, his cab missing, with his body dumped upon the parking lot of Tukwila's SouthCenter Mall.   It took police authorities two weeks but they found both cab and the probable murderer in the Eastside city of Richmond, Washington.  The suspect is a US Army deserter, Army Specialist Jonathan Kang Lee, and now convicted child molester.  Lee had been charged with the rape of two underage children, ages 6 and 7; and having skipped his trial, was sentenced, in absentia, to 64 years in prison.  The mystery now is who is holding him in custody, the US Army or the Richmond Police?   As from the start of this case, there has been very little information issued or known. 

RediCab emailed to tell me that Lee drove off JBL/Fort Lewis base on January 14th.  Nothing beyond that is known.  No one is telling how he met up with Hokema.   When new information is provided, I will repeat it here. There is a gofundme account for Nick. I donated $100.00.   The account is as follows: http://gofundme/f/nick-hokema 

It is very important that we in the industry support our fallen comrades.  How many actual murderers did I have sitting behind me during my 35 plus years driving cab?   More, I am sure, than I want to think.  Cab driving is a deadly profession, Nick's death yet another sorry expression of that fact. 

Long Cab Ride

While I never got the "grand slam" of cab rides, when recently in Ajijic, Mexico, I was told of one.  He was a very lucky fellow.  A few years back, a cabbie working in the Canadian NW Territories city of Yellowknife, drove someone round-trip from Yellowknife to Seattle and back again.  The passenger got in, told the driver we are "picking up a case of liquor" and off they went.  That's a distance of 1,542 miles.  Upon arrival, they stayed a week, then back up they went, along with more booze.  I believe it.  I have had shorter versions.  Longest ride I serviced was 215 miles.  This ride was over 3000 miles.  My informant did not know how much the cabbie got paid.  I would like to know.

Lunar New Year Lament 

A Shanghai, China cabbie was featured about money making during the new "Year of the Dragon" celebrations.  Business was down, he would not be eating like be would like, and Shanghai was swamped with people coming in from the countryside working China's versions of Uber and Lyft.  Different country, old story. 

Same Story in Cancun, Mexico

Two Cancun medallion cabbies were arrested after attacking an SUV filled with American tourists, scattering their luggage on the roadway.   The tourists were unhappy.

Friday I am selling my Yellow Kia

I am now completely out of the people transportation business.  Instead give me rats, cats and dogs.  The car I used to drive taxi a bit, and now Uber, will be sold.  Time to say goodbye to all that. 

Greetings Once Again From Arcata, California: Late But Not Never, The Blog Hog Is Back In The USA, And Of Course I Have Something To Say

This Should Have Originated From Ajijic, Mexico---3 Recent Mexican Cab Rides

The explanation is due to both Google and Yahoo's refusal to recognize the computer I had brought along.  They kept wanting to send me verification codes to my American telephone number.  A number of other insane, inane security obstacles told me I would be waiting until my return to once again communicate with the greater taxi world and community.  But before I briefly describe where I was, I will relate my 3 Mexico cab rides shared with that famous personage of these pages, "she-who-can't-be-named."  Does anyone really know how to operate a cab?  Mostly don't, from my experience.   

We flew in from Oakland, CA to Guadalajara, Mexico (population 1, 385, 629), our ultimate destination Ajijic, Mexico.  Arriving early in the morning, about 4 AM, via Volaris Airlines (I don't recommend the airlines), we took a cab for the 24 mile (38 kilometer) ride to Ajijic.  Cab ride was 550 pesos ($32.00).  The guy was a ten-year veteran, guessing correctly his years in the profession.  Hard to fool me!  He was okay but drove past our turn taking us to the center (el cento).  We had to guide him in but that shouldn't have been necessary, Ajijic American/Canadian well-known "gringo" land.  Dropping us off at the main plaza, I gave him an additional ten dollar bill.  I liked him despite everything.  C plus grade for this ride. 

Our second cab was a few hours later to our Airb&b apartment.  Having our bags, and tired from the trip,  we took what was at most 3/4 of a mile ride.  It was a rip, 70 pesos ($4.00).  The younger driver was terrible but saved our legs.  D plus cab ride. 

Third cab ride was February 1st back to the aeropuerto, this time 600 pesos, and I gave the rookie driver (2 years on the taxi road) a 300 peso tip.  We thought we were getting the experienced Arturo, a cabbie recommended by Bob and Nora, local gringos but instead we got Lalo, his employee, 22 years-old.  Not the best driver of cars, unnecessarily tailgating and not passing when he had the opportunity.  Friendly kid.  At least to he got us to the airport minus delays.  In reality, barely a cabbie.  C minus taxi grade.  Has potential if he doesn't first kill himself and his passengers. 

Arriving an hour late in Oakland, we took the BART to my car parked in North Berkeley at my old friend's Jake's house.  Thanks, Jake!  From there we drove back to the Udupi Palace vegan Indian restaurant.  We had eaten there before we took off for Ajijic.  Very good.  1901 University, Berkeley.  Telephone number 510-843-6600.  Small place.  Very Busy.  Delicious food. 

Why Ajijic? 

More detail on the trip later.  This was her second time around in Ajijic, last March having gone solo minus the "donkey" as I am called.  I am her favorite pack animal.  She loves both sunshine and pickleball, something offered in plenty in Ajijic.  Lake Chapala, Mexico's largest lake, 48 miles long and 10 miles wide, is a wonderful place to sit by and watch a profusion of birds.  Sunsets from the shoreline worth the trip. 

Olympia, Washington Cabbie Found Stabbed at Southcenter Mall Mid-January

Accessing my email, friends had sent me news items documenting this tragedy.  Driver from Redicab was found dead on the street, his cab stolen.  Nickolas Frank Hokema, age 34, had been driving a cab since 2016, enough time to know the "ropes."  His cab has since been found but not the murderer.   First area cabbie murder in a long time.