Saturday, November 1, 2008

Green Cabs A No Go? This Cabbie Cries: "Say It Ain't So!"

Ask 50 cabbies what they would rather drive, hybrid or Crown Victoria, and at least 20 if not more, will tell you they'd prefer less gas consumption. I say once we go green, we'll never go back, I know it's not quite so catchy but it's the truth. 

The Metropolitan Taxi Board of Trade just won a preliminary injunction against Mayor Bloomberg's green taxi agenda. What really rubs me the wrong way, is that we cabbies have been mis-represented. The MTBOT doesn't represent all New York taxi drivers. Quite the contrary, it mostly represents taxi owners, most of whom lease their cabs to drivers and thus do not have to pay for gas themselves. The reason the judge halted the green taxi fleet plan was not because of safety issues, or durability concerns. Rather, the judge halted further greening of our taxis because only federal government and not local government, has "the right to set fuel efficiency standards."-NYTimes

To further prove my point I encourage you, the reader to survey  50 cabbies who already drive hybrids as taxis, if 90% don't say they are glad they made the switch, well, I'll be surprised.  


Click here for The New York Times article: 




1 comment:

Gusgamashuq Abunoori said...

Here's another cabbie in favor of hybrids. The garage I drive out of lured me in by passing out flyers at Penn Station about their fleet having HYBRID vehicles. But when I showed up the dispatcher said soon kid, soon. Now it looks even bleaker. Fughedaboudit!