New York Targets Biased Cabbies in Sting

Spurred by a complaint from actor Danny Glover that five cabdrivers had refused to pick him up because he is black, scores of undercover police and city inspectors took to the curbs here Friday in a crackdown aimed at uncovering racial discrimination.

Operation Refusal netted a handful of hackies whose vehicles were confiscated--including one driver in Manhattan who kicked out a woman seeking a ride to a Brooklyn hospital.

She turned out to be an undercover operative.

But many drivers who were on their best behavior Friday stressed the issue is far more complicated than black and white.

“A lot of drivers are scared for their safety,” Ben Pierre, a black cabby, said as he paused to discharge a couple with big suitcases outside Pennsylvania Station. “I pick everyone up. Money is money. Green is green.”

Others admitted, however, that they were afraid to take passengers into poor neighborhoods because of bad experiences. They told of being held up or having people beat the meter by disappearing into big apartment buildings without paying the fare.

“The mayor wants to crack down. . . . Everybody should not be against the cabbies,” said one driver who wanted to be identified only by his first name, Khalid. As he drank a cup of coffee near his parked yellow taxi, Khalid, who is Pakistani, added: “The city should listen to the cabbies.”

The issue of driver discrimination is not new in New York. Mirroring the experience of thousands upon thousands of ordinary people, even David N. Dinkins, the city’s first black mayor, has complained about being refused rides.

But after Glover charged last week that cabdrivers passed him by five times in a single day, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani announced the undercover sting with tough penalties, including temporary cab confiscation and license suspensions.

“There are a thousand different things going on in New York City,” Giuliani said Friday on NBC-TV’s “Today” show. “Sometimes, an unfortunate event like this does create attention, and you can make something good come out of it.”

The mayor pledged to increase the number of undercover taxi inspectors from about 40 to as many as 400.

“And we’re going to have days in which we have an intensive effort with even more people,” he said. “The whole purpose of this is really to say to taxi drivers, most of whom are terrific people and wouldn’t do anything like this . . . , that it’s just not acceptable.”

Although his complaint prompted the sting, Glover said that he disagrees with the approach, charging that it victimizes cabdrivers without dealing with the issue of racism.

“There should be some sort of constructive engagement between cabdrivers and the community, the people they pick up, their clients,” he told ABC-TV’s “Good Morning America.” “We have already contacted various cab associations, and we want to put them together with community people” to talk about the issues. Glover also called for increased diversity training.

In order to obtain a hack license in New York, drivers must attend 80 hours of taxi school, where a full day is spent on multicultural issues.

Fledgling drivers are told that a license to drive a cab is a privilege and that taxis are an integral part of the city’s system of mass transit.

“Anything less than a guy standing on a corner with a machine gun and a bottle of whiskey, the driver is at fault if he doesn’t pick him up,” one veteran instructor said he tells his students. “It creates a bad work habit if you start discriminating.”

But some drivers admit that things are different once the rubber hits the road.

Many cabbies cruise the streets with their taxi’s off-duty light illuminated until they find a fare they want to pick up. Often, they will roll down the window and ask the destination of a possible passenger. If the place is right, off goes the light and the rider is invited into the cab.

If the driver doesn’t want to go, the litany of excuses can range from engine trouble to nearing the end of a work shift to a meal break.

Other drivers scoff at such excuses.

“They have as much right to be afraid of me as I have to be afraid of them,” said one black cabby as he sped his passengers away from Penn Station.