By: Don Driggers
New York City is going to have to pay damages to cab drivers whose licenses were suspended after arrests.
David Meyer of The New York Post reports, “more than 5,600 taxi and for-hire vehicle drivers with arrests on their records claim the Taxi and Limousine Commission unjustly suspended their licenses as their criminal cases played out in court — and are now seeking damages”.
The drivers’ suspensions — which occurred between 2003 and 2020 — were ultimately resolved, but only after months out of work and an arduous legal process, according to the impacted cabbies.
Many of these arrests were quickly dismissed in court while the license suspensions would last for weeks or months.
A federal judge ruled in 2019 that the TLC’s process for appealing license suspensions was unconstitutional because the agency declined to consider “evidence of a driver’s ongoing danger to health and public safety.” Such evidence must now be considered as a result. Since then, the portion of suspensions that get reversed has increased from virtually none to 65%, said Daniel Ackman, the lead attorney on the class-action suit, according to The New York Post.
In other taxi news, The New York Post reports Uber is suing the city over its plan to raise the minimum wage for ride-share drivers by nearly 24% per mile – claiming the drastic hikes will damage the entire ride-sharing industry, new court papers allege.
The city Taxi and Limousine Commission last month approved the first increase in metered fares since 2012 — including increases in per-mile and per-minute rates for Uber and Lyft Inc. drivers.
In its Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit Friday, Uber argues the new hike would mean shelling out an additional $21 million to $23 million a month amid the holiday season — or raising rider fares 10%. And that would “irreparably damage Uber’s reputation,” the suit claimed.
Priscilla DeGregory of The New York Post writes that the new rule will take effect Dec. 19 and raise driver pay, from 2019 rates, by 7.42% per minute and 23.93% per mile, with a sample trip of 30 minutes and 7.5 miles requiring a minimum payment of $27.15, according to the TLC.
The exact cost to ride-sharing customers is unclear since each company would have to decide how much to hike fares. The TLC began raising driver minimum wages in February 2019 with a minimum pay rule and has twice raised it for inflation – in February 2020 and March 2022.
Meanwhile in other related news, NYC and it’s woke denizens in the city council are trying to destroy the independent contractor work model, where Uber drivers sign on to an app and work at their schedule according to their independent desire to make extra money and turn ride share apps into a regular on the books per hour job, destroying the entire business model.
Believing they know best for everyone left wing politicians and the TLC plan to raise the minimum wage for ride-share drivers by nearly 24% per mile.
Uber is suing the city over its plan to raise the minimum wage for ride-share drivers by nearly 24% per mile – claiming the drastic hikes will damage the entire ride-sharing industry, new court papers allege.
NY Post reported:
In its Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit Friday, Uber argues the new hike would mean shelling out an additional $21 million to $23 million a month amid the holiday season
