NEW YORK-The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission expects to hold a full public hearing at its next meeting, tentatively scheduled for May 20, on a proposed regulation to restrict the use of cellular phones by cab drivers.
“There has been a flurry of news reports about our cellular phone rule proposal,” Diane McGrath-McKechnie, commission chairwoman, said at the NYC TLC’s regular meeting April 15.
“I want to make it fundamentally clear we are not looking to ban cellular phones. What we are looking at is that drivers must pull over to the curb and be legally parked before using them.”
McGrath-McKechnie said the commission is drafting the regulation in response to numerous complaints from passengers in some of the vehicles operated by the more than 90,000 yellow cab, car service and limousine drivers in the city.
“The TLC has received a ton of complaints from passengers that a driver was talking on the cell phone when they got into the cab and still talking on the phone when they got out of the cab,” she said.
“If you’re driving with one hand and talking on a cell phone with the other, your eyes are not on the road.”
McGrath-McKechnie added that the commission has found that the taxi industry “has been very supportive of our plan.”
The proposal, which was still being drafted as of the April 15 commission meeting, would not apply to taxi drivers’ use of their dispatch radios.
The ban on dialing and talking while driving also would allow exceptions for drivers who need to report an emergency they experience or witness. However, the TLC chairwoman also noted, there already exists a program called Cab Watch, in which drivers receive a special wireless phone that can only dial 911 along with training in what to report if calling that emergency number.
