[mancerayder]

Fellow Brooklynite here, and I agree 100%. I can't believe the hubris of these guys, trying to get me to get out of the cab after they hear I live in Brooklyn. And BTW, I'm JUST over the bridge in Brooklyn, about 10 minutes from the E River in traffic! It's the tourists that suffer, or the newbies, who aren't as rude as us New Yorkers - they'll doubtless exit the cabbie who says, "Sorry, not going there." I don't exit cabs when legally they can't ask me to.

But it gets worse with yellow cabs. First of all, they never clean their cars. Half the time it smells like a goat has been freshly transported. Secondly, they don't care about noise - at least half of them use the radio speaker system to conference call in either their wives or their fellow drivers and yap away while you get to hear that, on high volume. Sometimes there's awful music. That's rude and inconsiderate and doesn't often happen with Uber and Lyft.

I'm going to say something mean: the cabbies get what they deserve. They can whine all they want, and I do have some sympathy that these drivers moved to this country only to get stuck in what is a failed monopoly structure. The reason why cabbies were successful before Uber and Lyft and medallions used to cost 1 million dollars was because they operated under a monopolistic environment with no competition.

I remember once the cabbies went on strike because they were mandated to install GPS tracking devices and credit card machines. The machines made them furious, and for a year after a lot would be taped up: "Sorry sir, machine doesn't work."

It makes my blood boil just thinking about some of the awful experiences I've had with yellow cabs.

Glad to see them suffer.

[jseliger]

The best part of car services may be safety. About 1 out of every 10 cab rides entailed crazy and/or dangerous driving. I don't think I've ever seen that in Uber or other car shares, because if a driver drives poorly, they'll be rated poorly. And the mutual-rating system seems to improve passenger behavior too.

[billmalarky]

I've been in cabs where it was clear the driver did not have a license, or had somehow cheated the system in order to get one. One man did not understand basic concepts like how to turn left at a red light. He believed he had the right of way to turn left at all times (I guess he was confused into thinking having a "green arrow" was standard for all lights even if they didn't have one) and when oncoming cars would keep coming at him he would slam the brakes out of fear instead of punching the gas - stopping in front of traffic! Thankfully no one t-boned us but when the oncoming traffic drivers would honk at him he would honk back and get angry (whilst stopping in place due to slamming the brakes). I was only in the cab for about 1.5 miles but this happened at 2 or 3 lights. This was in Queens! I shudder to think of what would happen to him and his passengers in Manhattan.

Horrifying.