First time in history I was working during snow storm, and enjoyed working in storm although I had one flat tire.



Except Staten Island, I went to all other boroughs and took few photos, Iphone camera sucks for night photos but until I don't buy a real slim camera I'm stuck with it.









All above photos were taken in Brooklyn, Park slope and Coney Island area.


Sunny side,Queens


Woodside, Queens


Astoria, Queens

Labels: Brooklyn, Queens, Snow Storm

For all those, who think cabbies don't go to Brooklyn, Garfield and 6th avenue it is.

Labels: Brooklyn, NYC, Taxi Business

By driving in Manhattan, one will soon come to conclusion that city has become very bicyclist friendly, and I like this idea so much that offered my partner instead of taking subway or commuting in car to change shift, we should buy a bicycle, it is fun and also healthy activity for the rider and to the environment.

But with increasing bicycle ridership in New York City, with more and more bicycle designated lanes in the city, I feel to see riders obeying any traffic laws, except for major intersections, majority of cyclist do not stop at red lights, few of them will pause, look around and then will continue on their way.

Once I had a fare going to Leroy and Hudson street, we were going south of 7th avenue south and I had to turn right onto Leroy, this particular block has very limited street lights and is very dark on 7th avenue south, also I was driving in right most lane, still before turning as an habit I looked into side mirror, everything seemed fine, as soon I made turn a bicyclist slammed into my car, he also had audacity to tell me don't you have fucking eyes, dude I don't have eyes on back of my head but you certainly do, don't you? I lost my tip on that fare for sure.

In another incident in East village, I was coming onto a cross street and had green light, upon reaching on intersection a bicyclist who had red light, doesn't bother to stop and thanks God I was attentive and had good breaks, otherwise It could be fatal and accident would have put me on front page of Daily News, after all only cabbies do make mistakes not otherwise around.

My question is, is city going to enforce any traffic laws to the bicyclist? because numerous times I have noticed them breaking lights in presence of the police, police seems too busy to look onto cabbies mouth if he is talking or not?

Labels: Bicyclist, Manhattan, NYPD, Traffic

Labels: Iphone Photos, NYC, Pelham Parkway, The Bronx

It was a rainy Tuesday,work was fine in the evening but during rush hours i went back and forth to brooklyn, so could not avail the good chance in city. Later in night it turns into ghost town, no cars no fares either.



Even on cold freezing and rainy day, construction workers were still working on Madison Avenue, I have seen NYPD traffic wardens in rain coats before, but this was first experience to see some one covered in full yellow suit.



This how New York is, rain, snow, day or night we have to work, and work hard too.



These kind of scenes always sadden me, we live in a city where sixty amongst top hundred richest people of world reside, still some one have to sleep in freezing weather and rain in the street.It saddens you more when you know majority of these homeless people are war veterans.
Photo was taken in Korea Way A.K.A K-Town, W 32nd street between 5th and 6th Avenues.

Labels: Brooklyn, K-Town, NYPD, Taxi Business, Weather

China Town, Dropped one fare on East Broadway and Clinton, It was raining and town looked like ghost town, could not spot any fare, so I took a short cigarette break here.

Labels: China Town, Iphone Photos, NYC

More than seven hundred cab drivers are ticketed since the new regulations of not using any electrical device has been introduced, three weeks earlier. Be happy new yorkers and soon to be parting TLC commissioner Matthew W. Daus, he can now live happily after saving the New York and new yorkers from these savages known as New York city cab drivers.

what do i think of these new regulations? cruel, inhumane, discriminatory and un-constitutional, before you jump on me and tell me that research has shown driving while on the phone is as dangerous as driving under influence, you will need to know, what is going on in reality.

I have read number of blogs, forums and on news websites, where people are commenting in favor of these new regulations, because they are made it to believe by TLC, city and media that these regulations will apply only when a cab is hired. In that case when driver has a passenger and still on the phone, I'm in favor of this, it should be enforced strictly, and it was so since I'm in cab driving business and also it is very much against customer service.

But this is not what these new regulations are about, new regulations prevent drivers to use any kind of electrical devices which includes Cell phone, blue tooth devices, GPS, Ipod and camera, even when they are not hired. Cab drivers are suppose to find legal parking to use any mentioned device. This is what it makes discriminatory, inhumane and un-constitutional. I do believe in all kind of research work provided by TLC to be correct, but I was unable to find any reference to New York city cab drivers alone instead research says drivers not New York city cab drivers, now if city is so concerned with safety of drivers, they should make laws for all drivers not only for city cab drivers, because when you make laws only for group of people not for the people, it is called discrimination.

One of my friend got the ticket, he was standing at fire hydrant and checking cricket score, for those of you who don't know, it is legal for a cab driver to stand at any fire hydrant in NYC unless he/she does not get out of his cab. He was ticketed for not being legally parked and using phone, this is what makes these regulations cruel. I myself got pulled over because police officer suspected me being on the phone while I was talking to the passenger.

Some how TLC does not regard driver as human rather thinks of driver as robot programmed to drive people from point A to point B for 12 hours, with out talking or having any kind of emotions, if a passenger get abusive, so what?, driver is a robot, he must not act in situations like this as human. Also robots are not social animals only humans are, it is very easy for robots to work in 2 feet of space with out talking to any one for 12 hour, after all they are programmed for this task. After 12 hours shift we will send them to recharge for next day's 12 hour shift. This is what makes it inhumane, Human needs to communicate to other humans especially with their loved ones, for whom they have chosen to act like robots.

But TLC does not forget to remind drivers that it cares for them, and for driver's own safety TLC is enforcing these regulations, cell phone can distract and can make you vulnerable to accidents, Oh yeah the Taxi Tv that we have fitted right behind your head is for your shoulder massages, so you can relax, and yes the partition that prevent you hearing from passenger and you have to take your eyes off the road to listen to the passenger, is no way distracting, you know taking your eyes off on busy 5th avenue will not end up in accident, it is only the cell phone that can cause accidents. And yes if some how you fail to respond to passenger's question and do not turn your head to make his majesty happy, we most likely will charge you of being rude to the passenger, But do not use the cell phone.

Labels: cell phone, NYC, TLC

I have become very lazy since year 2010 started, I have taken three days off this week, including today.

One dilemma,which I think every one who works night shifts has in common, is not having a real day off, because when you wake up day has gone already. I wanted to prepare my taxes on all these day offs but failed miserably, I think this year I will be rushing on April 15th, end date of taxes again.

Second task that I had in my mind was to change the look of my blog and make a web2.0 layout, I'm using blogger since 2002 when blogger had HTML templates, I kind of expertise in using all those template tags to form layout, then I moved my blog to its own domain and space and started using wordpress instead of blogger for that blog/website at backend. Now when I came back to blogger again for this blog, layout are in xml, which I don't understand, so I made HTML template again for this blog but constantly thinking to learn to move it to xml layout format, as it has more advantages and build in widgets for more parts.

What I'm going to is still use HTML template, make it from scratch and then try to convert that into xml layout, which will take long time, as I have to learn xml tags first.
Today, I was checking traffic sources of my blog and found quite strange statistics, but one that caught my eye most is people are using google to get ideas online by searching terms "not paying nyc taxi and running away" and ended up in my blog, be careful fellow drivers, you have geeks looking to jump a fare.

Anyone among you have tried google buzz yet? I'm using it and find more interesting than twitter, if anyone likes to follow me on buzz they can do it here. Buzzing sound much better than tweeting,twated,tweeks etc.

Labels: day off, failed plans., google buzz

Picked up two young kids about 11-13 years of age from upper east side, dropped them off on Park avenue. They chose to pay by credit card, strange.
Does this count in credit fraud? Any other merchant will refuse them, but we basically have no option.

Labels: NYC, Park Avenue

So tonight top news was Tiger Woods's apology in my cab, everyone, especially ladies were keen to comment on whole thing, I did not know that there were at least 15 women were involved in this whole scandal until one female passenger made me aware of that and added "One of the girl got pregnant and aborted the child without letting Tiger know, that was a million dollar baby right there, if it was me i would have that baby come out and live happily ever after" She said. I never understand why do women go for a married man if he has money? Why is money becoming more valuable than values them self?

Work was fine as it should be on Friday night, I had good luck tonight and was able to get few extra bucks in tips than what I usually get in tips, there were few fares who paid 100% tips, but later on that night I went in guilt mode. Around 10:00 P.M., I dropped one fare in Park slope, Brooklyn, On my way back while I was stopped at red light off the Manhattan Bridge, I spotted one fare on north bound Crystie street, this is the spot, where no other cab would come. On green light I drove to the lady, who was may be in her 60's. She had some luggage across the street and wanted me to make u-turn and pick up the luggage and drop her off to the Fung Wah bus stop, which is only one block away from there. I told her I can't make a U-turn, "I can wait here until you bring your luggage to this side of the street, or hale another cab on other side of the street." I told her.
"No empty cab is coming to other side of the street" she said, "and luggage is heavy for me" she completed her sentence. I was not ready to take a chance as that is hot spot for the police, I apologized to her and kept on my way north, later on I felt guilty of not doing that for her, I should have taken the chance.

Around 11:15 I got another fare going to little west 12th street, in Meat Packing District, I took 9th street to cross the town, turned on Greenwich street from Christopher street.Most cab drivers know Greenwich street and Washington Street in meat packing district can really turn into nightmare with excessive Stop signs if they fail to pay attention, which by the way act as taxi traps for cab drivers.
As as stopped at stop sign on Bethune street, I started talking to the passenger if she wanted to go around Washington street and come back on little west 12th street or she wanted to get off on 9th avenue, upon crossing the Bethune street I noticed police car rushing from Bethune street onto Greenwich street behind me,with flashers on, my first thought was " he might be looking for way", I moved to right side of the street, police car came behind me, which assured me I got pulled over.
"Your license and rate card" officer told me as he approached my car, I gave him my license and rate card and asked "what did I do wrong, Officer?"
"you were on the phone and did not stop properly" he answered me.
"I was talking to the passenger officer and I did stop there more than 30 seconds while talking to the passenger" I told him.
Then he said, yeah you were stopped but when you came into motion there was one pedestrian on cross walk which you ignored.
End of the story, he took my license came back after one minute and did not issued any tickets, good enough.
So yeah my night went great, Thank God.

Labels: meat packing district, NYC, NYPD, Taxi Tales, Ticket, Tiger Woods

Labels: Iphone Photos, NYC, Yellow Cab

Usually people think fare jumpers are likely to be males, past year I had three fare jumpers, all of them were white females, kind of passengers that really doesn't raise any red flags.One of my friend who works day shift also had one fare jumper, which was again white female, so based on these personal experiences, I can say white females in their 20's are most like to run away with out paying.

Tonight, around 2:30 A.M. I dropped off one fare at Juliet Supper club in Chelsea, W21st street between west street and 10th avenue to be specific.As expected, I got another fare, a female in her late 20's or early 30's, from the spot.

"14th between 5th and 6th" she said as soon she entered into my cab.
Thinking of a short ride I asked her "14th between 5th and 6th?" which I do as routine to make sure the destination, she replied yes.

After maybe 5 minutes while I was stopped at red light on 6th avenue and 14th street, I asked her "where do you want to stop, miss?". This is where the trouble begins
"where the fuck am I?" she asked me nicely and raised first red flag.
"we are at 6th avenue and 14th street, miss, you said 14th between 5th and 6th, yeah?" I reminded her politely.
"You fucking open your ears, I said between 9th and 10th, I'm a new yorker you can't do this with me" she answered this time more politely.
Thinking in my mind, I made left on 14th from 9th, crossed three more avenues, was she busy masturbating at that point?.
"Miss, if you will swear once more, you are out of this cab" I warned her.
"Yeah ,I'm getting off and not fucking paying you" she showed her cards.

I locked my cab doors at this point, she tried to open the doors, did not work. I have Ford Escape with L shape partition, what she did next was not expected by me, she jumped in front seat to unlock the doors, from the knob on front door, It did not work either as I have pressed my side knob to lock position.

"Ok you can call the cops,I'm not paying you" she gave me another option.
"How about if I drive you to the precinct, its not far from here, miss?" I made the offer.

This point she relaxed a bit, and said if I drop her off between 9th and 10th, she will pay me. I drove her to the destination, she paid and said "I'm huge tipper, you have lost your tip".
Thank you miss, do you want your 10 cents back? I asked her as fare was $7.90.
No, you can keep it, and she was calm like nothing have happened between us moments ago.

I do admit,i make mistakes sometimes, like 18th/80th kind of mistakes,in situations like this I prefer to ask street numbers like one eight/eight zero, problem in this particular case was not that i drove her to wrong address but problem was she was not ready to listen, even it was her own mistake.
What other cabbies do in situations like that?

Labels: Assholes, Chelsea, Juliet Supper club, Taxi Tales

I was on vacations,at least from the blog, but back again with something to share.
As ending note to this post, I would like to tell you, I hate girls with credit cards. For some strange reasons every time I spot a new fare, where I'm dropping off the current fare, that passenger has to be a girl with credit card. She will open her big bag, from the bag she will try to find small valet, Credit card seems to stuck in the credit card slot.
After this whole thing if I'm lucky and no cab has shown to pick up the fare, She needs the receipt.
Damn, this thing is happening a lot even though I always turn off the meter block earlier.