Let’s meet John Moore founder of “Boston Clean air cabs” no one man is more responsible for Boston’s forced migration to Hybrid Boston Taxis then John Moore a Somerville architect. Which is why most Boston taxi drivers including myself rightfully credit him with taking millions of dollars out of our pockets.

I am sure you are asking how the efforts of one man could have cost so much to so many people who can’t afford it, so please stick around and try to follow the  bouncing ball as we explain how Mr. Moore’s tireless efforts to have Boston’s taxi cab fleet convert to hybrid vehicles cost the working poor hard earned dollars.

On 8.31.08 Boston’s police commissioner Edward F. Davis signed into law,with power derived from a 1930′s act of the Massachusetts legislature , a new Taxi Cab rule book that required all new vehicles placed into service as taxi cabs  be brand new factory white 4 door cars  with less then 200 miles and no change of title. Since any cars placed on the road as  Boston taxi had an existing time limit this left several cab owners with little more then a year to come up with the money to purchase a brand new factory white hybrid vehicle to use as a Boston Taxi

Where did they plan to get this money? An easy solution presented itself further down in the newly issued “rule 403″ signed into law by commissioner Davis. Rule 403 further allowed Boston taxi cab owners who placed into service these required cars to charge up to an extra $18.00 per shift for these vehicles. A Boston cabbie renting shifts on a hybrid would not pay $95.00 per shift rather then the old standard of $77.00. Further the rule change allowed taxi cab owners to charge the shift driver a $3.00 insurance collision waiver to cover any damages to the taxi a charger that would have been greeted as a joke prior to the hybrid mandate.

Can you imagine a cab owner asking for $3.00 to cover the cost of any damages that might happen to a 5 year old used police cruiser with 280,000 miles? Factor in the Ford motors had been making 200,000+ units every year since 1992 allowing for a plethora of parts and you can see how funny of a proposition this would have been.

Now that these Boston Taxi cab owners had been forced to buy expensive exotic cars with newly designed electric/gasoline “hybrid” drive trains they wanted a bit of insurance. Another bit of an added bonus to fleet owners was that they could no require taxi cab shift drivers to put up a sizeable deposit of $200.00 that would be held for the length of employment and not accrue interest. Can you imagine owning 400 taxis ,collecting $200 deposits on every one of them at least once (Some cabs have 4 drivers and one wonders if 4 deposits were collected per cab) socking them all into a money market fund and keeping the cash? Now that’s a windfall that would make the Massachusetts lottery jealous!

One new protection for shift drivers rule 403 provided was that Boston taxi cab owners must now issue receipts and paperwork to go with the money they collected. Imagine until 2009 a cab owner could stick the money into his pocket  say “thanks pal” and then turn and walk away without issuing a receipt and it was perfectly legal?

A typical 2009 Hybrid receipt,if you actually have one since most drivers were still afraid to ask and the people making the rules were still not doing spot checks, would total $104.67 after the insurance,salestax and an odd .30 fee no one understands. Seriously there is an additional .30 per shift these guys collect that has been explained to me a couple of times now but makes no sense. Something called a violation assessment? Now add in that you would still use around 6 gallons of gas in a hybrid vehicle and you get a grand total of $120.33 with gas at $2.61 a gallon.

This means the Boston Taxi cab driver would have to average 10.02 an hour 12 hours a day before he made any money at all! Think  of it a Boston taxi cab driver must gross $31,285 a year BEFORE he makes any money for his family on a 5 day work week.

No consider before the Hybrid mandate Boston Cabbies typically paid $75.00 a shift for a Crown Victoria plus gas. No imaginary insurance collision waiver no violation assessment fee no sales tax. $75.00 total plus gas with a typical 12 hour gas consumption of 10 gallons at 2.61 a gallon that’s 101.10 before you hit profit and the rest of the money is yours or  $26,286 a year. A total savings of 4,999 for each 5 shift a week cabbie in the city if Mr. Moore had no begun his meddleing.There are 1825 cabs in the city with 2 five  shift a week drivers minimum at 2 shifts a day per taxi.

This means even if all 1,825 cabs in the city were parked on Saturday and Sunday and no one drove them,which we know is not the case, Mr. Moore cost the working poor taxi cab drivers of Boston roughly $18,246,350.00 Yes you read it right and my math is right 18.2 million dollars extra paid out a year by the working poor cab drivers of Boston because environmental activist John Moore thought “Boston Taxi cabs should go green.”

Now are you ready for the hard part? There could theoretically be no more hybrid taxi cabs placed into service and the Boston Taxi Cab owners could still charge the extra $18.00 per shift. How did it happen?

Boston Taxi cab owners are a funny bunch. They did the math saw the incredible amount of extra money they would be making of poor shift drivers and instead of smiling and thanking  Commissioner Davis they sued him in Federal court claiming that among other things Commissioner Davis had over stepped his bounds because only the Congress of the United States of America was allowed to regulate fuel mileage.

On July 23`rd  2009 US District Court Judge William G. Young sided with taxi owners. Ruling that the city of Boston could not mandate they purchase hybrids. On 12/10/2009 this same group of Taxi Cab owners lead by attorney Paul Merry went back to court and got the judge to agree that allowing cab owners to charge extra for a hybrid vehicle Vs. a comparable internal combustion engine vehicle was in violation  of the judges former ruling.

Within 24 hours the city of Boston via a new law signed in by Police Commissioner Davis now allowed the extra$18.00 to be charged for any “new” vehicle placed into service as a Boston Taxi cab until it reaches 4 years old. This means if a taxi cab owner goes out and buys a 2010 Ford Crown Victoria he can now charge $95 a shift plus the .30 assessment violation plus $3.00 insurance plus sales tax for a total of $104.67 and the driver who rents the car will save 0.00 gallons of gas. Now 10 gallons of gas at 2.61 a gallon comes out to $26.10 plus the $104.67 a day means that taxi cab drivers now must gross $34,000.20 a year before they feed their families.

This means since John Moore “environmental activist” and local architect has potentially caused the working poor taxi cab drivers of Boston $28,156,830. a year for 4 years! Thats right if every Boston Taxi Cab owner goes out tomorrow and buys a Ford Crown Victoria the working poor Boston Taxi Cab drivers will have to find an extra 112.6 million dollars over the next four years.

Now thankfully most Boston Taxi Cab owners are not as scummy as that and only a few have gone out purchased Crown Victoria and charged the extra money,or at least only a few have been reported to me.

In conclusion I would like to say I do understand that Mr. Moore probably thought he was doing the right thing when he initially began to think he alone knew how to run a business he had never worked in nor had any relationship to better then the people who were already doing it. I can picture him now out tailing a city of Somerville licensed taxi cab around the hub thinking to himself  “these fools don’t know what they are doing I alone will have to show them the path to salvation” .

I can forgive Mr. Moore his trespasses I only wish that now that  the cold hard dollars and cents of his “great idea” and who had to pony up that money is staring him in the face he publicly admit that he may have made a mistake when he began pushing that a private business he had no interest in nor had any relationship whatsoever to change their fleet to one he alone approved of he really had no idea what he was doing.

I further request that he put half the energy he put into ,forgive me, screwing the little guy into publicly denouncing the large rich taxi fleet owners of the city for passing on the costs of his fabulous idea to the working poor of the city of Boston.

When he is done doing that I would like him to personally apologize to each and every single Boston Taxi cab driver who has lost money on what he must now admit was a lame brain idea.

2 Responses to “Hybrid Boston Taxi”