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January 12, 2014- By Steven E. Greer
BatteryPark.TV has been the recipient of several assaults by TLC-licensed livery cab drivers over the last several years, as we successfully cleaned up the residential streets that had been serving as parking zones for the cars awaiting clients. In one case, two town car drivers entered the lobby of a residential building and threw punches. In another, this reporter was literally held hostage in a locked moving yellow cab.
However, in all cases, the police refused to get involved, always referring the matters to the TLC. The TLC then dealt out lame insufficient punishment.
The Post reports today that we were not alone. Apparently, even when people are killed by bad taxi drivers, criminal charges are almost never brought, “A cabdriver who fatally struck a 9-year-old boy on the Upper West Side Friday was one of at least 21 hacks who have killed or injured pedestrians or cyclists in the city over the past five years — and only one appears to have been charged criminally…. “It’s a complete injustice,” said Paul Steely White, executive director of the pedestrian-advocacy group Transportation Alternatives. “Too many innocent lives have been lost. The message to drivers is if you happen to kill someone, it’s an accident. There’s no guilt, there are no consequences. It’s completely unfair,” he said…..Even cabdriver Faysal Himon — who severed the foot of British tourist Siân Green in Rockefeller Center after arguing with a bicyclist in August 2013 — escaped criminal charges, court records show.”
This boy’s life was worth $100. That’s the summons the cabbie will pay for failing to yield to a pedestrian. Makes me sick to my stomach.