Karen Levine, a lawyer, had her finger bitten. A suburban man was charged $135 to travel from downtown Chicago to Arlington Heights. A waitress had her clothes torn in an attempted sexual assault. Andrew Fastow, a banker, was punched in the face.
These incidents, contained in 1,213 citizen complaints against taxi drivers filed in 1985 with the city`s Department of Consumer Services, document the abuses of passengers by a small but perilous group of drivers whose records are so replete with violations that they would be barred from driving in other large cities.
City records show that some cabbies have accumulated 46, 70 and 96 violations for repeated acts of overcharging, reckless driving, verbal abuse and physical assault before officials moved for revocation of their chauffeur`s licenses.
Some cases, in fact, have resulted in criminal charges but not in revocation of chauffeur`s licenses.
The results of a two-month investigation by The Tribune into Chicago`s taxicab industry show that the problems involve a history of failures in the city department that monitors Chicago`s 10,000 licensed taxi drivers.
A lack of control over drivers was blamed by one city consumer services official on the lucrative taxicab lease system used by Yellow Cab Co. and Checker Taxi Co. Inc., who by city ordinance enjoy a monopoly on 80 percent of the licensed cabs.
Punishments for rule infractions were so rarely dispensed that officials at the department`s public vehicle operations division only last year retired a stamp used on drivers` records that read ”Guilty–NS,” which was short for ”guilty–no suspension.”
Beyond lax enforcement, some experts point to what they believe is a declining level of professionalism among Chicago`s taxi drivers. An analysis of the city`s cab business by the Chicago Area Transportation Study in 1981 noted that qualified drivers were becoming an increasingly precious commodity because ”the money is not enough at which to make a permanent living.”
”The era of a `professional` taxi driver,” the study concluded, ”seems to be gone.”
”We`ve got a large part of our industry filled with people who are trying to learn at the expense of consumers,” said Arthur Dickholtz, founder of Flash Cab Co., whose drivers` records are among the best, city records show.
One passenger was so angered by his recent treatment at the hands of Chicago cabbies that he sought retribution in Springfield. Last week, State Sen. Jeremiah Joyce (D., Chicago) shepherded a bill through the Senate that would increase the number of cabs allowed to operate in Chicago and end monopolistic conditions. The bill was prompted because several cabdrivers refused to take him and a friend on a short, low-fare trip in the Loop last winter, he said.
A Tribune study of the complaints filed and acted upon in 1985 shows that the most common passenger objections were for refusing rides (26 percent of the complaints) and overcharging (25 percent).
Refusals nearly always involved drivers who rejected fares because the destination would not bring enough money. While taxi patrons like to swap stories about cabbies who get lost or don`t speak English, those reasons were cited in the fewest number of complaints.
Tony Olivieri, deputy commissioner of public vehicle operations since September, 1984, said his efforts to weed out poor drivers has been hampered by the failure of previous administrators to maintain detailed case histories of driver abuses.
”As I identify drivers who are constantly in violation of the ordinance, I am taking steps to revoke their licenses,” he said. ”When I came aboard, I put out the word that the party was over.”
Jesse Blackmon, consumer services deputy commissioner, Olivieri`s boss and overseer of enforcement activities for the department, declined last week to answer questions about his four years as head of public vehicle operations. Blackmon`s supervisor, Jesse Madison, consumer services commissioner, said, ”It`s my understanding that individually when drivers were found guilty they were dealt with.”
But city records show there are drivers who despite years of violations continue to operate cabs with the city`s blessing.
Among the drivers Olivieri said he has targeted for license revocation are:
— Jacques D. Aurel, who has accumulated 70 alleged violations, including at least 18 for overcharges, in his eight-year career. The most flagrant example of passenger cheating against Aurel occurred last September when he charged a suburban man $135 for a $31.50 ride from a Chicago hotel to Arlington Heights, city records show. Aurel, who was driving a Checker cab, was ordered by the city to refund the difference and was suspended for 10 days.
Less than a month later, Aurel was accused of charging another passenger nearly double the legal rate for a short ride in the Loop.
Olivieri recommended revocation of Aurel`s chauffeur`s license last December. Six months later that action is still pending before the mayor`s license commission, and Aurel legally continues to drive a cab.
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— Edward Serbanescu, 30, who is charged by the Cook County state`s attorney`s office with two counts each of attempted aggravated sexual assault, kidnaping and unlawful restraint. The charges stem from complaints brought by two waitresses who separately hailed his cab in the early morning hours of April 21, 1985. Accounts of the alleged attacks are contained in reports from Chicago police and Olivieri.
According to the reports, the first woman said she flagged Serbanescu`s taxi on the Gold Coast at 3:30 a.m. Claiming he had to check a tire, Serbanescu allegedly pulled into a secluded area, struck the woman and tried to pull off her blouse. During the struggle she broke loose and fled, she reported.
Serbanescu allegedly picked up the second woman less than an hour later. He cursed and then ”began swinging at (her) and told her to take off her clothes,” according to Olivieri`s letter to the mayor recommending that Serbanescu`s license be revoked. He ran after her when she jumped from his cab, but she escaped.
Olivieri moved for revocation of Serbanescu`s chauffeur`s license in March. That request is still before the mayor`s license commission.
— George Lockett, 33, who has been brought before the public vehicle operations division 96 times since 1975. Lockett, a Sun Ray Cab driver, routinely picks up fares at the Greyhound Bus Station and charges passengers exorbitant rates for short rides, according to complaints. In the last two years, 10 consumers have lodged complaints against him about price gouging. Last September, Lockett charged a man who could not speak English $71 for a $5.50 fare from the bus station to the North Side, according to the man`s complaint.
In February, the license commission was asked to revoke Lockett`s license, but it has not done so yet.
— Behravesh Porsangi, 39, who is the subject of passenger complaints alleging 46 violations in the last 11 years. He has been suspended from driving for a total of 27 days and been issued 13 warnings by city hearing officers for violations, including ride refusals and verbal abuse of passengers. In February, Olivieri recommended that Porsangi`s license be revoked after he repeatedly swore at a passenger he had picked up at O`Hare International Airport and then attempted to evict from his cab at River Road and the Kennedy Expressway.
”Has the city come to a point where a passenger now has to fear for his life once he enters a cab?” the passenger wrote in a letter to the city. ”I will personally appear . . . to take whatever action is necessary to remove this man from having public contact.”
Porsangi, an Iranian who overstayed a 1971 student visa and now faces deportation, received a five-day suspension after appealing a revocation.
Sidney A. Jones Jr., director of the mayor`s license commission, said that the delays in these cases are unusual and that revocation procedures typically take only 30 days. ”That is an unduly long time,” Jones said.
”They should have been disposed of by now.”
While the number of complaints filed each year is relatively small given the tens of thousands of cab trips each day, Olivieri said he is convinced that there are more rider who have had bad experiences but who don`t complain. ”But how many more, I don`t know,” he said.
To aid riders in reporting bad drivers, a revised public vehicles ordinance being introduced by Mayor Harold Washington next month will follow the lead of other large cities in requiring all taxis to post the telephone number where complaints can be made.
Under the ordinance, once a complaint is lodged with the Department of Consumer Services, either by telephone or in writing, a driver is called before a city hearing officer who has the authority to impose suspensions of up to 29 days if he finds the driver guilty.
If the driver appeals the suspension or if the city seeks to revoke his license, the issue goes before the mayor`s license commission, where a driver may be represented by a lawyer and call witnesses, including the complainant. While Olivieri has recommended revocation of at least nine chauffeur`s licenses in the past seven months, complaint files examined by The Tribune raise questions about the city`s disciplinary procedures and their effect on curbing driver abuses.
Before Karen Levine accused Yellow Cab driver Julio Molina of biting her finger in January, 1985, Molina had been called before the commission 21 times for violations such as refusing fares and reckless driving, records show. On 11 occasions, hearing officers either issued a verbal warning or used the department`s ”Guilty–NS” stamp.
Levine said she had criticized Molina for reading a newspaper while driving the taxi erratically during a downtown cab ride.
”As I was getting out of the cab, I said, `You`re in trouble, buddy,`
” she said. ” `I have your name and your number.` Unfortunately, I was pointing my finger at him as I said this.”
Molina bit her, requiring Levine to see a doctor for a tetanus shot. Molina received a five-day suspension, according to city records.
Andrew Fastow said he was victimized by a driver who claimed he couldn`t give Fastow his 70 cents change. After Fastow took back a dollar bill and replaced it with the exact fare, Checker driver Bashiru Habib punched Fastow in the face.
Before the incident Habib had accumulated 31 complaints and been suspended 14 times since receiving his license in 1981. After punching Fastow, he was suspended again, this time for 15 days.
Olivieri said that since he took over the department, he has increased penalties for such offenses as overcharging, a violation that he says was routinely ”punished” only by an order to rebate the excess charge. Describing such a practice as ”a license to steal,” Olivieri has ordered that rebates be coupled with suspensions.
”It`s like robbing a bank and only having to pay back the money if you`re caught,” Olivieri said of his predecessors` policy on overcharging.
Cab company owners also assert that they take action against poor drivers. Dickholtz said he has required lie detector tests of drivers accused of abuses. If one of his cabbies is guilty of overcharging, the driver is made to pay ”triple damages” in the form of coupon books for free rides or contributions to the passenger`s favorite charity.
Yellow Cab Co. President Jeffrey Feldman said he employs similar practices when rider complaints come to his attention, but he said the city is remiss in notifying him of his drivers` transgressions.
”We find out too late the man has an entire file over there filled with complaints and nothing has ever happened,” Feldman said.
”I`m not here to manage their companies,” said Olivieri, who charged that leasing practices by Yellow and Checker, the city`s two major companies, allow drivers to circumvent the effects of city-imposed suspensions. Because the companies write seven-day leases for some drivers and check their licenses only once a week, some suspended operators may still continue to drive.
”Administratively,” Olivieri said of Yellow`s and Checker`s seven-day leases, it ”is easier for them I`m sure. But on the other hand they lose control” of their drivers.
Unlike some cities, Chicago has not legislated progressive punishment for rule infractions. ”Every case must be weighed on its own merits,” Olivieri said. According to the city`s complaint files, this has sometimes resulted in different penalties being meted out for the same offense when drivers have similar records.
In Los Angeles, where there are 4,000 taxi drivers, overcharging or refusing a passenger results in a minimum five-day suspension for the first offense, a 30-day suspension for the second and revocation for the third. Discourteous behavior brings a 10-day minimum suspension. Even sloppy appearance has serious consequences–a 1 to 10-day suspension.
”If he dresses like a slob and smells like a slob, he`s out,” said Jack Reynolds, of the city`s Department of Transportation.
In New York City drivers are fined $100 the first time they decline a passenger and $250 on the second offense. If they are caught refusing three riders within 24 months, their license is revoked.
While overcharging and rider refusals accounted for 51 percent of the complaints filed in Chicago last year, other complaint categories included:
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reckless driving, 15 percent; abusive and rude behavior, 15 percent; attempted or actual assault, 5 percent; and technical violations like cab stand procedure infractions, 7 percent, The Tribune found.
Despite a common perception that drivers cannot speak English, only 3 passengers–less than 1 percent of the 1,213-total–complained that their drivers had difficulty communicating. Similarly, only 29 complaints, 2 percent, charged that drivers had poor knowledge of city geography.
Of 299 complaints lodged for overcharges, the city ordered refunds totaling $2,472 to 237 passengers, according to The Tribune`s analysis of city records. An additional 474 drivers charged with fare cheating, reckless driving, passenger abuse and other violations were suspended from driving for 1,474 days, an average suspension of 3.1 days. In addition, 114 drivers were placed on supervision for a total 3,276 days, an average 28.7-day term. A driver is suspended if he commits another violation during his supervision.
The analysis also shows that while Checker and Yellow, both divisions of Checker Motors Co., account for 80 percent of the 4,600 licensed taxis, their drivers accounted for 67 percent of last year`s complaints. The remaining 33 per cent were distributed among 98 independent operators.
Complaints from the drivers, on the other hand, are aimed at hearing officers, who they say are biased on behalf of riders and bent on meting out justice in a public relations campaign that holds the customer is always right.
”The opinion is that we can be abused, but they cannot,” said Audrey Irsch, who has been driving a Checker Cab for five years. ”There`s a real hostile environment between drivers and passengers in this city.”
To think a cabbie will be at his best ”24 hours a day is wrong,” said Rene Rivera, a 27-year-veteran who owns his Checker cab. ”We must be masochists to put up with the public.”
Wednesday: Cab chaos at O`Hare International Airport.