Ask yourself few questions, assuming that you are a gypsy cab (neighborhood livery) driver and your base is in The Bronx.
You pick up passengers on Southern Boulevard, they pay cash, YOU HAVE A FAIRLY HIGH RATE OF PASSENGERS NOT PAYING YOU AT ALL. (Sorry, let's talk reality).
You live off the grid, but not royally. Aha change is coming to your world! You learn about the green taxi plan. You aren't sure if you like it or not but you beleive if you do not join it the cops will totally drive you under the ground. As things stand now, you get around two or three tickets for illegal pichups. If you show to court you win so it's a hassle. You have a friend who tried hustliing downtown and the cops fell upon him like vultures.
So, you sign up and borrow from your cousins to buy the taxi meter, get the paint job, the credit card swipe gizmo, the GPS, the Taxi TV. You know that you are about to make a brand new acquaintance, the tax man, but what can a poor guy do?
So you're all green now, you're ready to roll, you're in debt and you have to put aside money now to pay taxes. A new world. And aside from new debt and taxes, your world now includes the Upper West Side, newly gentrified East Harlem, Williamsburg, Park Slope, Long Island City, Astorua. Beside that, you know that once you take a passenger from these places people will hail you while you are in the "yellow zone." They say that the meter will be set up not to engage from below 96th Street (it's a rumor) so what will you do in this case? What you are already used to doing, estimating a fare and bargaining with the customers, and these customers are not the tough customers you are leaving behind on ?Southern Boulevard.
You pick up passengers on Southern Boulevard, they pay cash, YOU HAVE A FAIRLY HIGH RATE OF PASSENGERS NOT PAYING YOU AT ALL. (Sorry, let's talk reality).
You live off the grid, but not royally. Aha change is coming to your world! You learn about the green taxi plan. You aren't sure if you like it or not but you beleive if you do not join it the cops will totally drive you under the ground. As things stand now, you get around two or three tickets for illegal pichups. If you show to court you win so it's a hassle. You have a friend who tried hustliing downtown and the cops fell upon him like vultures.
So, you sign up and borrow from your cousins to buy the taxi meter, get the paint job, the credit card swipe gizmo, the GPS, the Taxi TV. You know that you are about to make a brand new acquaintance, the tax man, but what can a poor guy do?
So you're all green now, you're ready to roll, you're in debt and you have to put aside money now to pay taxes. A new world. And aside from new debt and taxes, your world now includes the Upper West Side, newly gentrified East Harlem, Williamsburg, Park Slope, Long Island City, Astorua. Beside that, you know that once you take a passenger from these places people will hail you while you are in the "yellow zone." They say that the meter will be set up not to engage from below 96th Street (it's a rumor) so what will you do in this case? What you are already used to doing, estimating a fare and bargaining with the customers, and these customers are not the tough customers you are leaving behind on ?Southern Boulevard.
