Today, the Taxi and Limousine Commission revealed the final statistics related to the Great Taxi Scandal, and said as a result they plan to revoke 663 drivers of their licenses. Altogether, 21,819 taxicab drivers overcharged passengers a total of 286,000 times, resulting in $1.1 million in overcharges for passengers.
When the taxi scandal of 2010 first broke, it was estimated that 35,000 drivers overcharged passengers a total of $8.3 million, but those initial estimates were soon deflated as over-the-top when more information was revealed about how the overcharges occurred. The majority of those 21,000+ drivers, 13,315, only overcharged passengers once or twice. But the 663 who will lose their licenses did so 50 or more times.
Even though the overall numbers were diminished from what they were first thought to be, City Council member and transportation chair James Vacca justified passengers anger: “Riders have a right to pay the appropriate fare and not a penny more. While the number of cabbies accused of repeated overcharging is relatively small, that in no way limits how outraged we should be by those who nickel-and-dimed riders.”
