Because of traffic, I asked him to divert our route to the upper level of the 59th st bridge by a block. As evidenced in the above video, the driver was engaged in a conversation during this time. I stopped recording at a red light on 59th and 2nd. When the lights changed, Mr. Singh was so distracted by his call he almost turned into the lower level entrance, taking me 30 blocks out of the way. I had to shout to get his attention so he would get back to the correct entrance.
While on the bridge, the operator took his eyes off the road for an extended period of time to operate his cell phone instead, as seen in the following video:
The following is the redacted receipt for the trip:
If the NYC TLC wants to have any justification for their continued use of taxpayers funds to provide a bureaucracy for regulated service that is supposed to offer benefits as posted and mandated by law, those regulations need proper enforcement. Otherwise passengers in yellow cabs are put at greater risk of injury or death, are offered no benefit of protection whatsoever, and justifies the elimination of the medallion structure and the TLC. Not that services like uber are better; by definition, the regulated services should be held to the regulated standard; otherwise, they serve no value other than useless artifact.
As a passenger, remember - it is your right in a TLC cab to have a driver who is completely undisturbed from his job of SAFELY AND COURTEOUSLY driving you.. This includes phones, music, food, and anything that would distract your driver from safe operation.
