Three young men were in police custody after a vicious and brutal attack against a friendly taxicab driver in the Williamsburg neighborhood.
Around 3:30am, cabbie Mustafa Kadro, 52, picked up the three men and agreed to give the men a free ride after they said they wouldn’t be able to afford the fare.
“Taxi Dave” is a veteran NYC cab driver (as well as his father and grandfather) who hosts a unique taxi-themed talk radio show on Sunday nights at 8pm. While he is formally known as David Pollack to some, his fans know him as the popular radio show host who brings a unique New York perspective that isn’t readily found anywhere else on the radio.
Taxi Dave, 60, has spent his career driving yellow cabs and then working in other related areas of the industry, which includes the “Taxi Dave Show.” The show has been on the air for several years and it has become quite popular with the New York City cabbies and countless other listeners.
After a lawsuit filed by yellow taxi drivers, the plan to increase the wheelchair accessibility of New York City’s taxi fleet by 2020 is now on hold.
New rules requiring wheelchair accessible taxicabs within the fleet came about after the city settled a suit that charged it was in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act because so few taxis were accessible. Only approximately 250 of New York City’s 13,000 were able to pick up passengers in wheelchairs.
A Muslim New York City taxi driver was hit with a $350 fine after refusing to allow a female passenger to sit in the front seat of his cab. Taxi driver Tamsir Drammeh argued that due to “religious reasons”, he could not allow a woman to sit so close to him and would need to be in the backseat.
Drammeh picked up the woman and her family at Penn Station and when her two children, ages 6 and 11, got in the backseat with her husband, the mother went to sit in the front seat where there was additional room. The driver refused to open the door and told her that her husband could sit up front, but she could not.
In a heartbreaking tragedy, an 88-year old woman was accidently struck and killed by a taxi driver who was in his 16th hour of his weekend shift.
The elderly woman, identified as Luisa Rosario, was on the corner of Columbus Avenue and West 109th Street around 12:40am when she was hit. Police say she was within the crosswalk and she was about a block from her home while heading to her daughter’s house.