We've been a little concerned about our tipping habits ever since we stumbled across the controversial bad tippers website recently. It's prompted us to start questioning all of our assumptions about tips, and it seems that others are also in a similar state of mind: the WSJ wonders today when the default tipping options became so expensive in cabs. "It's obnoxious!" said former cab driver Bruce Verstandig.
According to VeriFone, which provides card readers to fleets in many big cities, the typical defaults are 15 percent, 18 percent or 20 percent—fleets in major cities such as Denver, L.A. and Washington, D.C. offer 15 percent, 20 percent and 25 percent options. And yet in NYC, the only options are 20 percent, 25 percent or 30 percent...and nobody can exactly explain why it's more expensive here. The New York Taxi Workers Alliance says no one consulted it on the matter. The companies that provide the card readers make "vague allusions to focus groups and the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission," but the commission's spokesman swears ignorance: "Our regulations are absolutely silent on this."
In the past, we've been told that gratuities are up to each individual customer and are not a part of the set rates. And it seems that NY cabbies have a bit of a rough reputation: they were given low marks in a recent hotels.com survey for their "notoriously surly dispositions." And yet, tips average 18 percent to 19 percent on credit-card payments in NYC, which ranks us among the most generous tippers in the nation. So maybe this is some sort of punishment tax we all have to deal with for forcing taxis to go to Brooklyn?
