Friday, March 8, 2013

-Archives- Shift Shots 8/10/12

Fake Taxicab!
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East Village

Another illegal taxicab caught in the act. an official taxicab licensed in some town in upstate New York, but all these cabs with the markings 201 on them are fake... As in, not allowed to pick up passengers who stick their hands up and wave one down within the streets of New York City. These cabs have not purchased the medallion for the City of New York, which is now valued at $800,000. They also do not have any of the other fittings necessary to run a cab in New York City, they are off the grid, completely unchartered, and most likely do not take credit cards. Actually they may take credit cards, but good luck tracking them down if something goes wrong, they are completely unregulated by New York City. The rate of fare for a taxi ride in these cars, starts out cheaper than a regulation taxi, but after 5 blocks or so it gets more expensive, the meter charges a lesser fee (according to the signage, but who knows how accurate the meter is?) every 6th of a mile, however we charge a tad bit more, I assume, over a longer 5th of a mile, so their meter according to the sign on the door goes up faster.

Add to that the uncertainty of no regulations. that meter could do whatever it wants to do, since it's already illegal to begin with.. Also all of these cabs have vacancy lights that turn on in the front to show potential customers they're available, while the light never goes on in the back, so competition never knows.
signs to watch for - the medallion number on the roof should always read like so for example 3Y82, or another example, 9B28
There are no zeros in the medallion numbers. the second digit in the medallion number is always a Letter, and the letter is never I,O,Q,R,S,U,X, or Z
And of course, when you get in one of these cabs, none of the traditional regulations are installed, there is no tv inside, and no markings to help identify the cab. these cabs are for tourists who don't know any better. 
If you find this interesting you can go to my flickr folder dedicated only to fake taxicabs. Although a lot of the taxicabs in the folder aren't exactly thieves, most of them are deliberately inaccurately marked so that they can be rented out for use in movies and television, and then there are the police cars which have almost everything correct in the markings except for a few signs that they aren't picking people up,... and yes I have about 10 or more pictures in there of actual cars just like this one pretending to be licensed taxicabs, picking up people and charging them illegal fares. One thing all the taxicabs that aren't licensed to pick up but do, and still have the taxicab yellow and the meters all have in common??? The number 201. I don't know why, I guess they are all from one specific guy who is running his own company of illegal taxicabs. 


Gowanus, Brooklyn
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2 comments:

Star said...

Aaah, found the post answering my questions left on another post. OMG the differences are so tiny to the naked eye that on the fly it's gonna be pretty tough for a customer to tell the difference. Oh dear! Thanks for the heads up! (I wrote a similar post on my blog about Milan quite awhile ago...did you see it?)

NYC taxi photo said...

oh no i didn't see it, I'll try to check for it..