Dominic Carter, Political Report on Taxi Drive Suicides in NYC

Let’s face it. Taxi drivers are invisible public servants. It’s almost easy to ignore them. No matter where you are in the world, you get into the cab. They transport you from point A to point B. Pay the fare. End of encounter.

But seven taxi drivers have committed suicide in just the last year in New York City. Taxi drivers say mounting debt, has turned to outright desperation. Their biggest frustration?

Imagine you had to pay a million dollars for your business, but your direct competitor, that is red hot with the public, paid nothing. In other words, competition from Uber and Lyft is lowering their incomes.

Taxi & Livery Drivers say technology is not killing them but they instead blame city leaders that permitted the sudden increase in the number of for-hire vehicles on New York’s Streets. As a newsman, I spent one Friday Afternoon with four different taxi drivers to hear their frustration directly.

I was immediately thrown off guard as the first driver arrived. In a male dominated industry, my expectations were for a male driver to approach me, but up walked a woman named Nina Godashi. Standing about “ 5.4” she was wearing a black leather jacket to match her black sneakers. The married, mother of two boys, lives in Staten Island, New York. Nina had her hair back in a ponytail, and holding her tanish brown big bag, she looked like she could be a fashion model.

On this brisk fall day with City Hall on one side of us, and the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge on the other, I asked: Why are taxi drivers committing suicide? Mrs. Godashi has no problem stating her point of view. You see, she could relate to her colleagues.

“Because they can not make a living anymore. They not making enough money to make a living…. Problems the City created which allowed Uber to serve the people of the city without paying for medallions. That’s why people doing suicide. They can’t pay the bills, they can not pay mortgage, they can not pay the college for the kids…. It’s really very, very, very bad. I can say it’s like when Superstorm Sandycame to New York in 2012, it’s the same for us for the yellow cab drivers.”

Nina has been driving a cab for 10 years. Forced to try to make ends meet …when she is home with her kids…her husband is out driving the same taxi that they share together.

In New York City Taxi medallions which is basically a city permit to operate, were long required for a yellow taxicab, and a limited supply of them, made the medallions extremely valuable assets. But that was back then. This is now. Drivers say ride-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft have rendered medallions almost useless.

Another driver I met with is Dorothy Leconte. An African American woman in her 60’s. Dorothy looks much younger for her age. With a full head of grey hair Dorothy drove up in her yellow cab, wearing glasses. You can tell she is proud of her grey hair seeing it as a sign that she is a survivor. We sat in her cab together near City Hall, and I asked the same question I posed to Nina. “Can you understand why some of your colleagues have committed suicide?” Ms. Leconte who is a single mom, and currently has a son in college at the State University of New York-College at Morrisville shot back without raising her voice.

“I do, I do understand, and I’m telling you this is my doctor’s report.”

She waved medical documents in front of me market up in red ink as we sat there.

“I have 10 pages of report, and every one of them you see a red line. This red line means an abnormal cell on me, and that could lead me to suicide, my doctor told me that yesterday by sitting 12 hours 14 hours in the cab.”

There was a time when Dorothy would have been considered quite the smart businesswoman. On her own, she worked so hard that she managed to actually purchase his own Taxi business. It would take her as far as she was willing to work. Dorothy did something that few of us could. Shen controlled her own fate. Her own destiny. But Dorothy sees herself nowadays as in part a victim of technology Another driver I met with on this day is 63 year old Nicolae Hent. Nicolae had a pleasant demeanor wearing his New Balance sneakers with the big “N” on them. He wore jeans and a “ grey hoodie.” Sadly the grey aptly represents his future. Nicolae came with a folder of financial documents, indicating he was in serious trouble. Nicolae planned to retire on his prized taxi medallion, only to see it completely plummet in value.

The last driver to commit suicide happen to actually drive for Uber. Another driver Douglas Schifter in February, shot himself outside City Hall after posting a long statement to Facebook blaming politicians for letting the streets get so saturated with for hire vehicles. The City did vote to place a temporary cap on the number of Uber and Lyft drivers allowed on city streets while the issue is looked at…but Taxi drivers are livid at City Hall. Their patience has expired. Here is how Nina Godashi responded:

“They can help the yellow cab, they can buy us out. Give us the money. The price it was in 2012… the taxi medallion over a million dollars….”

Almost in shock, I interrupted her to follow-up on her incredible statement.

“Are you telling me a medallion cost a million dollars?”

Nina’s voice started to rise.

“One million and fifty thousand. A single medallion!!! This city should reimburse taxi drivers first. How are you going to make level playing field when I paid over a million dollars and someone paid zero, it is impossible.”

Taxi drivers are so upset at their plight, they even placed four coffins in front of City Hall. Those medallions that once sold for more than $1 million, are now in the ballpark for as little as $175,000, according to data collected the by New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission.

Driver Dorothy Leconte, who we introduced you to earlier, owns her Medallion but is forced to work seven days a week. She went on to describe to me how earning $400 for a one daily shift used to be a good day, but that does not happen now. One recent day where it rained she says she pulled in $287. Out of that $287 dollars for one day’s work, money has to be set aside to

1. pay back the Medallion loan
2. Insurance
3. Workers Comp
4. Gas
5. Repair and maintenance of the vehicle even replacing tires

I found myself in an awkward position sitting in the small front of the cab with her. It doesn’t take a math major to work the numbers. I asked:

“So your telling me there are some days when you only make enough money to pay for the medallion of this taxi?”

Her rhetorical response.

“Yes. Then how do you eat, how do you live? That’s what you have to ask me. How do I eat, how do I survive.”

So I followed up again with Nina, the first Taxi owner I spoke too. “Mrs. Godashi Take me through expenses for a taxi driver?”

“We have a lot of expenses. We have to pay the mortgage. If you are owner, you have to pay the mortgage. If you are driver, you have to pay the broker. And you have to pay, if you are the owner, the insurance, the worker’s comp, you have to pay the gas, you have to fix the car, maintain the car! Anything that breaks down. Usually we have a lot of tire problems. Everything needs to be fixed. So it has a lot of expenses. The car I can say has $150, $175, $200 expenses, every single day. Even if you are driver or the owner, because if you are driver you have to pay the broker $100. Now they went low because they don’t have enough drivers so the price went low. If you are owner, you have to pay the bank.”

Then came her kicker that seemed to punch me in the stomach.

“Work or no work, you have to pay them.”

Nino Hervias is the spokesman for one group of taxi-drivers. He arrived wearing his glasses, a yellow baseball cap, and a black tee-shirt that read in bold yellow letters: “Official, NYC TAXI…RIDE YELLOW.”

"They see no hope. A lot of people feel that they can not survive to overcome this nightmare. We feel betrayed and abandoned by the city in the name of technology.”

The drivers also complained of what they said are numerous regulations they face giving Uber another competitive edge, like car inspections every four months. Taxi drivers as ordered by the City to also outright buy a new vehicle every few years. I also asked driver/Medallion owner Dorothy Leconte what makes it so tough for taxi drivers financially?

“Financially our business drop 35 percent. What we used to make years ago we can’t make it anymore. We can come in the street expecting a rush hour, there’s no rush hour while dozens of taxis running with no passenger, and you see an uber driver or Lyft picking up in the corner, because instead of picking up one passenger, they can pick up 5, 10, 6 passengers at the same time. So they swipe everything that belongs to us, and the worst part, in the evening time when business is slow, uber lower the price.”

In a statement, an Uber spokesman Jason Post told me:

“Drivers who own individual medallions have been left behind by change and exploited by lenders, and we support action that eases their financial burden.”

But that made me think even more again about what the first taxi owner told me,Nina Godashi:

“It’s really very hard for taxi owners to make a living anymore. There are too many cars on the road. It’s out of control, so the city should take off some cars, or should find a solution to help everybody.”

So I came into this situation initially under the belief of let the market determine the price for a cab ride. Hell lower the price. What is wrong with that. It’s better for the consumer. That the market should determine which companies succeed and which ones don’t via public demand.

However it is simply not fair that one set of drivers, just a few years ago was mandated to purchase a medallion for as high as a million dollars, and then another set of drivers comes along and all they have to do is set up with an app company online and then they are in business.

How does one pay back a million dollars, when your rival is dominating the market and you are left with nothing. This doesn’t seem like the American way. These drivers are not looking for a hand-out. They simply expect a day pay, for a hard day of work.

They worked, and fought, and clawed their way to qualify for a million dollar mortgage. Their hard work did the talking for them, and with the swope of government action, these Taxi and Livery Cab drivers don’t know how they will spend their golden years. Next time we pass up a Taxi cab for an app service, perhaps this is something we should all think about.

About The Author: Dominic Carter is a political reporter in New York City for Verizon Fios. Dominic regularly travels the country to speak at events and connect with people all over. Dominic is an author and appears on his local radio station weekly to talk politics among other things!

Visit Dominic's website to find out more about him!

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