Feature: Hell Called. It Wants Its Cabs Back.
Do the math. To be in the black at the end of the week, the average driver who doesn’t own his medallion or car needs to pull in a grand just to cover expenses. To accomplish this, drivers like Speedy work a minimum of 12 hours a day for six or seven days a week; some of the younger drivers even put in 18- or 24-hour stretches at a time, stealing sporadic naps. And yet we wonder why every cabbie in the city doesn’t greet us with a broad smile and a “How are you today, good sir?”
Considering the economics and the grueling hours, it’s also not surprising that driving a cab isn’t the most sought-after job in town.
“Just look around,” says Emanuel Ndukwu, a Nigerian and Philadelphia cab driver of 10 years. He’s gesturing to the taxicab lot on Island Avenue near the airport, where drivers wait, sometimes two hours, for their turn at the airport line. His point is obvious. The nationalities of the drivers in attendance are conspicuously absent of white, Anglo-Saxon Americans.
“Americans hate this job because they think those who do it are not fit to be human beings. We are the dogs,” says Ndukwu. “When I drive my wife’s car, a nice 2007 [model], people respect me. But once I’m in this box, this coffin,” he says, pounding the trunk of his cab, “I lose all privileges.”
Making all this worse, of course, is the fact that the bar is so low for becoming a cabbie in the first place. I was surprised to learn that pretty much anyone can get a Philadelphia cab license, via a shockingly simple process. Take $115 down to 2415 South Swanson Street; sign up for a four-day class; undergo citizenship, driving record, and criminal-background checks; and take a test that measures basic English proficiency and the logistical workings of a taxi vehicle. That’s basically it. There’s generally no road evaluation, no city residency requirement, and no real oversight of a driver’s ability to handle customers.
“The PPA doesn’t even take the driver around the block to see if he can drive,” says Ron Blount, a city cabbie for 20-plus years and head of a local advocacy group of drivers intent on improving conditions. “I was at 30th Street the other day, and a driver came up to me and asked me how to put the car in reverse. In reverse!”
EVEN IF PHILADELPHIA could raise the status of drivers — and thereby at least make dealing with them slightly more pleasant — there remains another stubborn problem: The quality of our cabs is still all over the map. That’s because they’re either owned by the drivers themselves or, more frequently, leased from individual medallion owners. With decentralized ownership, we can demand newer, more tech-savvy, fuel-efficient and comfortable vehicles all we want — but who’s going to pay for them?
If there’s a solution to our cab problems, it probably has to come through the medallion owners; that’s where the money is, and the strange, sticky story of the medallion may contain the seeds of the city’s best hope.
