Livery Cabs
As people moved further and further away from the city centers and eventually had to deal with travel between cities. With those increased requirements came the need for newer, faster, and more sophisticated forms of transportation.
Now let’s focus. To the average New Yorker, of course, we know what the accumulation of human civilization is – New York City. It has everything a civilization needs, and will surely be remembered, like Rome and Paris, as one of the definitive cities of our modern era. It has places of government, of art, of literature, of food, of commerce, wealth, law, industry, recreation, and fulfillments for every need of the human spirit. It even has parks like Central Park, which can fulfill our need for solitude and nature.
The problem doesn’t so much lie in enjoying these many bountiful gifts as in getting to where you are in a position to receive them. This, as we’ve stated earlier, requires transportation. Transportation is, of course, a major problem in a city of millions. Often owning a car is too expensive to be practical, or just simply too difficult to drive in a traffic system as congested as that of New York City. So what are the alternatives?
Well, there are always the oldest means around – your feet. A lot of people walk at least part of the way to and from work, and around the city to its many interesting locations and places to see. There are busses, trains, subways, and, of course, taxis.
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Everyone’s familiar with the classic yellow cabs of New York City. They’re everywhere in the city, on every street in droves, filling traffic with a color usually seen on traffic signs and stoplights. These are the classic Medallion cabs, which roam the streets looking for passengers to ferry around the city. Those passengers generally stand on the curb and hail these cabs, then pay the fare once they’ve arrived at wherever they’re going.
Livery cabs are a little different. In New York City, livery cabs are generally prohibited from picking up curbside fares – the sort of fare that hails a taxi form the sidewalk. Instead, livery cabs operate by the person needing a ride phoning the livery cab company and asking for a ride. This can be useful in a number of situations, which we’ll discuss in a moment. The term livery cab is fairly broad, and can cover a number of vehicles, from normal sedans to full size and fully equipped limousines. In New York, though, the classic livery cab is the “black car,” or luxury vehicle, which runs for hire and operates fairly nice vehicles (like the Lincoln Town Car, for instance).
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So why bother using a livery cab when you can just lift a finger and hire a yellow cab right from the street? Well, there are a number of situations in which you might want to hire a livery cab instead of the more common yellow cab. If, for instance, you know when you’ll be departing for an airport, and you want something a bit more reliable and luxurious than the standard yellow cab fare New York City has to offer.
Or, consider the following situation. You get out of the bar at one or two in the morning, fumble for your keys, and realize that you’ve probably just had a little bit too much to drink. The problem is, you’re a long way from home, and the yellow cabs are few and far between. So what do you do? Simple. Just call a number and, a few minutes later, a livery cab shows up on your doorstep and away you go. For a few bucks, you get home safe, and everyone’s happy.
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Livery cabs are more common in the city than you might think, mainly due to the fact that they’re just not as visible as the ubiquitous yellow cabs. There are still plenty of livery cabs around though for those who are interested in getting a ride without bothering with the trouble of the yellow taxis, or who just want a higher quality ride than you can otherwise get. It’s certainly a lot more comfortable than riding in the bus.
In New York City, the idea of the livery cab stems from the monopolies and laws of the city. In New York, the only cabs which can legally pick up street fares are the “medallion” taxis we talked about earlier – the yellow cabs. Because of some legal details we don’t have time to go into now, only the cabs with those medallions can pick up street fares. These cabs are rather expensive to buy, and the average taxi driver can’t afford one – assuming he or she would ever even be able to acquire one in the first place. They’re sold rarely at infrequent auctions, and it’s often very difficult for a relatively poor taxi driver to acquire one.
So what usually happens instead is that a large company – like an insurance company, for instance – will acquire several of these cabs and then lease them out to lower paid drivers – or, in city terminology, “hacks.” These cars then take over the city and the street hires. It’s then left to the rest of the cabs in New York City to pick up the rest and to squeeze in business where they can.
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In New York City, the only vehicles that can legally apply as an FHV are those with less than nine seats in addition to the driver, and those who only pick up fares by previous arrangement – usually by previous arrangement with the owner of the taxicabs, or the cab company. These Fives are nearly always required to be affiliated with specific FHV bases. This affiliation makes many things easier for everyone involved – it is then, for example, much easier for the customer to simply call a number and hire a cab without all the trouble of digging through a long list of possible cab owners and cab companies in a phone book roughly the size and weight of a large marble tombstone.
Another reason for this required affiliation is for insurance reasons. If a passenger gets injured in one of New York City’s cabs, the city wants to make sure the driver is affiliated with a reputable company that will certainly be able to pay the insurance costs. Because of this, drivers will either have to work with another company or go through the extra trouble of starting their own, which can often be very difficult to do, especially in the fiercely competitive economic climate of the city.
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The livery cabs mentioned earlier, called “black cars” by most in the city, are the newest cutting edge of the FHV cab business, and are perhaps most deserving of the livery cab moniker. These cars are new, usually very luxurious, and are very comfortable. They can be hired over the phone and occasionally online, if you have reservations far enough in advance. They are great ways of getting to and from the airport, or fulfilling those appointments where you want to make sure you have transportation readily on hand when you need it, rather than frantically waving for a yellow cab when you’re already five minutes late.
These livery cabs are often also equipped with state of the art financial equipment. While many yellow cabs take simple cash fares for wherever you have to go, black cars are often outfitted with wireless debit or credit card scanners, allowing you to pay directly from your credit card without having to bother with the added hassle of using cash and dealing out the sort of exact change it can sometimes take for cash fares. This greater ease of service is one of the main reasons New Yorkers love the livery cab service – in fact, over ninety percent of all fares paid to these types of livery cabs are not cash based, and instead utilize that wireless technology that is just one of the features that makes these livery cabs so useful.
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Let’s say you want to become a livery cab driver yourself. You love to drive, you like the city, and you like cars. What else do you need in order to be a good cabbie, and how hard is it to get started in the business? All these questions, of course, can have a number of answers. Perhaps the most obvious requirement, though, is being a good driver. New York City cabbies are famed for their craziness; oftentimes, simply because they are so good at maneuvering throughout traffic and getting around the city as fast as possible. Think about it – you always hear the stories about crazy taxi drivers in the city, but how many taxi crashes can you recall seeing on the news? If you think you have those kinds of reflexes and responses, taxi driving may be for you.
You’re also going to need a couple of other non-driving skills. You’ll want to be a good mechanic – if your taxi breaks down in the field, you’re going to be down a lot of time and money if you can’t fix it yourself. Learn how to use the tools and make basic repairs, and you’ll be a lot better off if something ever does happen to you. You should also have some basic business knowledge – how do you keep track of your finances, your tips, your fares, and all the other minor details common to all taxi cab drivers in New York City.
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Above all these other things, though – even above driving skill – is the ability to find your way around the immense network of roads and buildings that is New York City. By far the greatest concentration of cabs is on Manhattan Island itself, but if you plan to be a good taxi cab driver, you’re going to need to know your way around the rest of the city, as well. Know how to read a map, and have plenty of maps on hand. If you’re working with a fairly well off livery cab service, you may very well have access to a good road map GPS unit – you’d better learn how to use it, and use it well. The faster and more efficient you are at getting from one place to another, the more likely your fares will be to come back to your service, and the more likely you’ll be to get good tips and continuing service.
So familiarize yourself with the city. Drive around, ride the busses, take the subways, read maps, examine satellite pictures, just walk for a few days – whatever it takes, know the city as well as you possibly can. When you’re out in the middle of the night taking a rich businessman with no time to waste back to his hotel, you’ll be glad for the education.
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Whether you’re interested in driving or riding, the only thing you really need to be aware of is the fact that the yellow cabs are not the only option when it comes to taxi cab transportation in New York City – and, in fact, aren’t really the best option. Livery cabs can get you where you need to go for competitive prices with less hassle and more class, and can get you there in a hurry. If you need a ride you can be sure of, be sure to think of looking up a livery cab service.
Need Transportation? Call 617-848-2689