THE R.V.:

Now that taxi drivers are being heard, it’s time to tackle long-hauling problem

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Richard N. Velotta

Local taxi drivers caught a couple of big breaks last week.

Not only did things go their way in a pair of Nevada Taxicab Authority allocation hearings, but not a single driver was thrown out of the meeting or arrested.

They could have been. And some of them should have been.

It got close at one point, as one disruptive driver was escorted out of the room but eventually was let back in. Another guy went to the front of the room, got on his knees and put his hands behind his back, inviting a handcuffing. Taxicab Authority officers just asked him to get up and quit it.

Fortunately, Ileana Drobkin, the chairwoman of the five-member board that regulates Clark County’s cab industry, kept her composure at the board's Feb. 28 meeting while the mob hooted and woofed through requests to put more cabs on the streets during the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament and Sunday's NASCAR race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Eventually, the board rejected more March Madness cabs and reduced the request for the NASCAR race.

Drobkin pleaded with the more than 300 cab drivers attending the meeting to be respectful of company representatives making presentations. Instead, they shouted them down, booed and heckled them — not exactly the kind of behavior one normally sees at a public meeting.

Drobkin probably could have ordered one driver to be removed permanently when he vowed “to destroy the cab owners” and punctuated his comments with an obscenity.

But then, the taxi industry is in a class of its own and, unfortunately, displayed little to no class at the Feb. 28 meeting.

Most drivers I’ve encountered are intelligent businessmen and women and have thoughtful ideas about how to make the industry better. They understand that they are ambassadors within the tourism industry and are among the first people visitors meet when they arrive at the airport.

Taxicab Authority administrator Charles Harvey has sought many of them out to have regular meetings to talk about how industry problems can be solved.

But then there are the others who don’t know how to behave themselves in public meetings and blame others for their bad behavior.

At the meeting, some drivers tried to establish a connection between cab allocations and illegally long-hauling customers.

Long-hauling is probably the biggest problem facing the local taxi industry. Unsuspecting new arrivals to Las Vegas jump into a cab, ask to go to the Strip and they eventually arrive there by way of St. Rose Parkway. The fare is double or triple what it should be. When they take a trip back to the airport, they may run into an honest cab driver who takes them the most direct route. When passengers ask why it cost so much less, they find out that they were a mark when they first arrived and can’t do anything about it, except tell their friends how they got screwed in Las Vegas.

Some drivers allege that because their bosses demand revenue quotas per shift, they have to long-haul and make the money or else get fired. They say that as soon as one driver sets a standard, they’re compelled to cheat just to keep up. It’s a cycle the Taxicab Authority seemingly can’t break.

Harvey said after Tuesday’s meeting that he’d heard several proposals to end long-hauling. The one that seems to make the most sense is establishing a flat-rate scale for trips between the Strip and the airport. The authority board actually heard such a proposal several months ago, but company owners rejected it.

Here’s another idea: Quit long-hauling people, and take it to the union or the media if an owner threatens your job.

“I have to admit,” Harvey told me, “when I go somewhere I’ve never been and get in a cab, I’d like to have a good idea of how much it’s going to cost me.”

So would Vegas visitors.

Now that the drivers have rediscovered some muscle and were heard by the authority board, now is the time to get something accomplished on the long-hauling problem.

But mind your manners when attending a public meeting. Your luck will change if you can’t behave yourselves.

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