taxicabs

Ethics Quiz: SheTaxis

/ Jack Marshall / 93 Comments
In Great Britain, SheTaxis also offers female drivers only , but apparently with a different market in mind....

In Great Britain, SheTaxis also offers female drivers only, but apparently with a different market in mind….

If a white customer doesn’t feel comfortable with a black taxi driver, that’s bias. If a Christian customer doesn’t want to give his business to a Muslim driver, that’s bigotry. If a white cabbie refuses to pick up a black man looking for a ride, that’s racism. And if a woman insists on only female cab drivers, who in turn will only pick up women, that’s…SHETAXIS!!!

From the New York Times:

A new livery service starting Sept. 16 in New York City, Westchester County and Long Island will offer female drivers exclusively, for female riders, according to its founder. It will take requests for rides through an app, and dispatch drivers sporting hot pink pashmina scarves.

“The service will be called SheTaxis — SheRides in New York City because of regulations barring it from using “taxi” in its name — and aims to serve women who may feel uncomfortable being driven by men, or who simply prefer the company of other women. The app will ask potential riders if there is a woman in their party. If not, they will be automatically redirected to other car services.”

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz for today is:

Is this ethical…

a) for customers?

b) for the service?

Continue reading →

Ethical Conflict: The Case Of The Confused Cabbie

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

taxi1Heading to downtown Washington D.C. for an early morning ethics presentation for the Federal Bar (at the GAO building), I encountered an ethical dilemma that got the day off to a challenging start.

Traffic in D.C. is ridiculous, so I arranged to have an Alexandria cab pick me up at 8:15 AM for a 9:30 AM presentation, assuming that I would arrive close to 9:00. I would have too, except that my young, African-accented cab driver had no idea where he, or I was going. I should have foreseen the problem when the cab was ten minutes late (this company knows my address and typically arrives early), but it came into sharp focus when the driver asked “So you know how to get there, right?” (No, I don’t know how to get anywhere, which is why you are the cab  driver, and I’m not) and made it startlingly clear that he didn’t know how to read his GPS. As a result, he made multiple wrong turns, even though the screen in front of him was showing him the way, and I ultimately had to interpret the GPS directions for him. I barely arrived on time, and felt like I had done the driving.

My initial instinct was to call the company and complain. I even took down the cab number.

And my thinking went like this: Continue reading →

Religious Tolerance Ethics: Con

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

Muslim cab drivers in Manhattan, as well as some other cabbies of discriminating moral tastes, think that they ought to have  the right to veto the placing of advertising on the tops of their cabs that they consider objectionable, notably ads for strip clubs.  Good luck with that, and I am being sarcastic.

The owners of taxi medallions who lease the medallions to drivers, according to Taxi and Limousine Commission rules, now get to decide what advertising to sell for the roofs of their cabs. It’s a privilege they pay for, since the medallions cost $600,000 or more. The cabbies, however, especially those who own their vehicles but still lease the medallions from the cab companies, want the rules to change so that a cabbie wouldn’t have to drive under the image of a professional “girl gone wild.”

The medallion owners are strongly opposed to any change, arguing that they have to cover the costs and liabilities for the cabs, so they should be able to sell any legal advertising, including for strip clubs. And they are 100% right. Continue reading →