Demon Cabbie Rape

Unless I am very wrong, there has never been a proven case of rape by a taxi driver against a passenger. Then why are all the New York papers reporting the alleged rape by a cabbie against a passenger that occurred last week? (Here it is on the Fox website an in the Times.)

It’s not that rape is a rare crime. According to the NYPD, there were 28 rapes last week and 489 on the year to date in the city. But only two are in the news. One is the alleged rape by a police officer, a case where the trial of the officer is winding down.

The other is a purported rape by a orange-turbaned taxi driver in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.

Here is how the story is being reported:

Cops have released a sketch of the rogue cab driver who they say tied up and raped his passenger at knifepoint at the end of a horrific ride through Williamsburg last week.

The 26-year-old victim told police that she had spent the early part of the night celebrating Cinco de Mayo at Public Assembly on N. Sixth Street. At some point after midnight, she hailed a cab — but instead of getting a ride home, she was taken to a darkened corner of Rodney Street near S. First Street, where the cabbie allegedly pulled a knife, bound her wrists together and raped her.

He then took her cellphone and $20 before letting her go at 6 am."
So she hailed a cab "after midnight" took a five-minute ride and was "let go" at 6 AM.

Here is another particularly imaginative account:

It was a long night, with lots of drinks. You stumble into a cab, as the sunlight is just beginning to show in the distance. You’re drunk, tired and just want to get a few hours of sleep before you have to wake up for work, and you expect a hangover is inevitable.

In the back seat of the taxi, you lean back and close your eyes. You’ll wake up when you get to your apartment in a few minutes. You’ll pay the cabbie and go home. You made it home.

For many New Yorkers, this scenario is not unfamiliar. It could have been you who hailed that cabbie early Friday morning in Brooklyn. It was after 5 a.m., and you had just celebrated Cinco de Mayo at the Public Assembly bar and music venue in Williamsburg.

Are we to believe that this rape occurred over 5-6 hours?

Did she fall asleep and the cabbie waited five hours for her to wake?

But the real wonder is that the press has picked up on this story en masse, all while an untold number of other rapes go unmentioned. It shows a willingness to believe that cabbies are criminals in wait, though there is no evidence to support such hysteria.

The demon cabbie is a persistent myth. It is stoked in particular by the New York Post, which headlined its story, “Woman in cabby-rape nightmare.”

But my bet is that this crime never occurred. And if it did it’s an aberration, which the press fuels as if it were a real fear. The demon cabbie lives!

Taxi of Tomorrow: A Bad Idea Today

Last week, Mayor Bloomberg announced the winner of his “Taxi of Tomorrow” competition, the Nissan NV200, a four-door van that will become the all-but-exclusive vehicle of the city’s taxi fleet. The NYT Times story is here, but the news was reported everywhere.

A lot of people argue that Bloomberg and his aides made the wrong choice, preferring one of the other two finalists, the Ford Transit Connect or the Karsan V1. But the real problem is that Bloomberg made the choice at all. Instead, the taxi buyers should choose, with their choice guided in turn by taxi passengers.

For as long as there have been taxis in New York City, there have been a variety of automobile models serving as cabs. Many New Yorkers remember fondly the Checker cab. But Checker, which stopped production in the early 1980s, never had an exclusive. It ran alongside the Dodge Coronet, the Chevrolet Caprice, the Peugot 505 and later the Ford Crown Victoria. Today, Hondas, Isuzus, Chevrolets, Fords, and Toyotas, among others, all serve as taxis.

As a regulator the city and its Taxi and Limousine Commission have always established specifications for taxicabs and then let the cab owners buy what they preferred. Of course, neither the city nor the TLC owns a single taxi. They are all owned privately by fleets or individuals. All are operated by drivers licensed by the TLC, but not employed by the TLC. The city and the TLC sometime forget that.

Given that taxis are privately owned and operated, it is very odd indeed for Mayor Bloomberg, one of the nations most successful capitalists, to order that every taxi owner buy the make and model car of his government’s choosing. It is as if the Securities and Exchange Commission held a contest to determine the best financial information terminal—and then required that every brokerage firm use the one it liked best. Somehow, I don’t think Bloomberg the businessman would cotton to this idea.

A lot of people who have weighed in think the city should have chosen an American company, Ford. Others rallied behind Karsan, which, while Turkish, said it would build its cabs in Brooklyn.

But the problem is not that the city chose badly, it’s that it should not be choosing. If Karsan makes an acceptable taxi, it should be an option for taxi buyers. The same is true of Ford—or Toyota, or Mercedes or Chevrolet. Cab owners will certainly have the best sense of what car models work best under the stress of being driven 12 or 24 hours a day, and of what design or designs taxi passengers prefer. If they are wrong, they can try another model—but not if the Nissan is the only choice. Of course, with an exclusive right to sell, Nissan will have buyers over a barrel.

The City Charter states that the TLC can regulate “standards for equipment safety and design.” But it says nothing about mandating a particular design. That’s not just the law: It’s also a good idea.

Just recently, the city tried to require (first directly then indirectly) that all taxis achieve a certain minimum miles per gallon. These efforts were held illegal by federal courts because it only the federal government, not municipalities, is allowed to regulate auto mileage. But now the city is turning around and deciding not just mileage, but shape, styling, and every aspect the taxi design—right down to the seat-coatings and the sound of the horn. It’s hard to see how this draconian top-down design command will pass muster.

But even if it’s legal, the “Taxi of Tomorrow” is a bad idea today.

Capturing Bin Laden

I am glad the U.S. forces killed Osama Bin Laden. I also feel a bit foolish because I have for years thought Bin Laden was already dead. Al Quaeda had every reason to downplay his death-- better to keep his dubious legend alive. The U.S. would have had its own reasons. Turns out he really was alive, though, not to be a deather, where are the photos of the body?

I also have a few questions about the news reports.

1. They say that the U.S. got the nickname of OBL's courier from prisoners at Guantanamo Bay? But how could that be. Have these prisoners been locked up for five-to-ten years? So how would they know who was carrying the messages for OBL, nickname or otherwise.

2. The compound is said to be eight times larger than the other homes in the area. But the satlellite photos show that is not true. http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m4/may2011/9/0/osama-bin-laden-compound-in-abbottabad-pic-googlemaps-222924567.jpg It's bigger,but not eight times bigger.

3. The compound is said to be priced at $1 million. Really? I know nothing about Pakistani real estate, but the place looks like a dump. http://msnbcmedia4.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/g-wld-110502-compound1-4a.grid-6x2.jpg. I doubt it would fetch $1 million in a Toledo or Detroit (except for the best suburbs of those cities.

4. All that said, if OBL was really hiding in an oversized house close to Pakistani military installations, how could people not have asked and found out who was living there?