TAN Hails A Hybrid Taxi

Well it appears not only do the new hybrid taxis in NYC help the environment, they also pick up negroes. Hallelujah!

I got to ride in one of these bad boys a couple days ago. I did a quick impromptu interview with the driver, and here's the report:

He says there are currently 18 hybrid taxis on the streets.

There are no partitions in these taxis, so you can smack the driver directly in the back of the head whenever he's going the wrong way.

My personal driver has been driving a cab since '77.

He says he gets about 36 miles/gallon. And he spends about $12-$15/day versus the $40 he used to spend.

In the next five years the whole fleet is supposed to become hybrid.

He says the "veterans" get first dibs on the hybrids. And there's no rotation system or anything.

At some point in the ride he told me that we were going strictly on electricity. I don't know if there was a switch for that.

The leg room is pretty tight. These will definitely hinder your late-night taxi-cab-confession lovemaking session.

In lieu of the partition there's a security camera. He didn't say, however, that there's anyone actively watching it. So you can still still shoot the cabdrivers instead of paying them on those extra long rides.

My driver told me his worst cab ride was back in '82, when he had some guy uptown ask him to take him downtown. Then when he got downtown the guy told him to take him to the Bronx. When the driver said no, the guy pulled out a gun (oh you mean that Bronx, ok, no problem). So the driver got robbed and had to drive the robber from way downtown up to the Bronx (pretty long distance for you non-NYCers).

So after hearing that I said, "oh yeah, well you going to the Bronx again sucka. give me your money!!"

Then he leapt out of the car and ran away.

When he finally came back I said, "just joshing. thanks for the info." And gave him a couple extra dollars for the trouble.

This has been a TAN News Special Report
.