N. Y. Cabbies Must Pass Stiffer Licensing Exams : Taxi drivers: With more and more immigrants seeking the job, the English test has been upgraded. The failure rate is nearly 40%.

Cab driver Claude Jacques learned English and his way around New York City at the same time.

“One time, this guy asked to go to ‘The Garden,’ ” said Jacques, who arrived from Haiti 10 years ago. “I start going to Central Park. The guy screams, ‘Madison Square Garden, Man!’ No tip from him.”

That was in a more freewheeling time. Nowadays, before a new cabbie hits the streets, there are classes to take and tests to pass.

With the city’s cab fleet becoming increasingly international--representing 91 nations and at least 72 languages at last count--officials have made the license requirements more challenging, trying to improve service and stem passengers’ complaints.

On Nov. 1, the English language test was upgraded to simulate real-life conversations. The mandatory 40-hour course has been expanded to include tours of the city and geography lessons.

The final exam, enlarged nearly threefold since the mid-1980s, now covers how to maneuver through obscure neighborhoods and the channels of city bureaucracy. The failure rate is close to 40%, up from about 10% before the revisions.

“We’re dealing with the whole city here,” said Jack Lusk, chairman of the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission. “Without standards, it would be crazy.”

Of the 40,000 licensed cabbies in New York in 1984, about 66% were foreign-born, according to a taxi commission study. That figure now is close to 85%, some experts say.

Lusk said the changes were made, in part, in answer to complaints that cabbies did not know the city or could not converse with English-speaking riders.

“The image of the New York cabbie as the cigar-chomping philosopher who talks about sports and politics is way out of date,” said Paul Herzich, a director at Federated Employment & Guidance Service, which operates the taxi commission’s training schools. “They’re an endangered species.”

About 6,000 applicants a year pass the English test and enroll in the two schools. An American-born student is an oddity, said Herzich.

One recent taxi class included three Haitians, two Pakistanis, two Egyptians and a Moroccan.

“OK, who can tell me what famous buildings are on East End Avenue?” asked teacher Bob Schneider, a former cabbie.

The students flipped through their maps of upper Manhattan. Schneider didn’t wait for the answer.

“Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s house,” he said. “By the way, you can always pick up good fares there at night.”

Jean Bruny, a 32-year-old Haitian, jotted down the tip. He lost his job when the factory where he worked moved to Pennsylvania.

“Hey, I need work and I need money,” Bruny said. “If I pass the test, I’m on the road. I’m my own boss.”

With the U.S. economy apparently recession-bound, some cab industry experts foresee a return of some native New York drivers. These days, a full-time driver can bring home $600 a week.

“The taxi drivers are like a barometer of political, economic and social upheavals,” said Anne Morris, director of the Center for Logistics and Transportation at the City University of New York Graduate Center.

“It seems the tougher the times in a country, the more we see immigrants from those countries looking to become cabbies.”

There is currently an influx from Pakistan, India and other Asian countries with high unemployment rates, said Morris, who has tracked the city’s cab industry since the early 1980s. Before the fall of Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier in 1986, Haitians dominated the newcomers.

“For many, driving a cab is the first step toward the American dream,” she said. “It’s a modern immigrant’s story.”

She said the Persian Gulf crisis could bring a rise in applications from Yemenis, Filipinos and others who fled occupied Kuwait.