49 USC Section 14105
( a ) Taxi-cab is the only reasonably-priced form of transportation we have that can bring you from point A to point B, almost, whatever the road condition and at anytime. It is fast, quick, on time and can go anywhere. Anyone can use it country-wide. It is the policy of the United States of America to make it more affordable to all US citizens, residents, and visitors.
- All States shall have a taxi-cab licensing system providing professional licenses known as “hack licenses”, issued by the State or the local jurisdiction therein. Such licenses shall served as for-hire licenses and taxi occupational licenses for the vehicles owned by the licensed taxi-cab driver.
- The hack license number shall be the for-hire license number, taxi license, taxi occupational license number of the taxi-cab driver’s vehicle.
- The hack license number shall be conspicuously displayed on the outside of such licensed vehicles. No other number is needed.
- Taxi-cab drivers who are issued such hack licenses shall have the right to pick up passengers county-wide within the county or counties where such drivers are permitted to transport passengers and shall not be limited to particular geographical areas within the county or counties where such drivers are permitted to operate.
- The vehicle licensed under such licensing systems and its for-hire license (taxi occupational license ) shall be exempt from judgment liens and execution on money judgments with the exception of liens as judgments arising from a breach of a contract for financing the purchase of the vehicle.
- To prevent selling of taxi-cab fares by valets, managers and owners of motel, hotels, condo, restaurants, apartments complex, public places and places with high demand for taxi-cab:
1. The front, including all entrances and exits facing a public road of all hotels, motels, restaurants; apartment complexes, condominiums, any non-public and public places with high demand for taxi-cabs shall be equipped with a green or blue light flashing or non- flashing with the word “TAXI” in order to warn taxi drivers that there is a prospective customer ready to pick up.
2. The light shall turn on once the passenger is ready and stay on while waiting.
3. The passenger shall be available for pick up by the first vehicle arriving on the premises if the institution has no taxi-cab stand.
4. Unless otherwise requested by the passenger, the rule of first in, first out must be observed if the institution has a taxi-cab stand.
5. The light shall turn off, once the vehicle left the premise with the passenger.
6. Failure to turn the light on by the valets in time and those providing assistance to the passengers shall constitute a violation of the law and shall be subjected to fine by any law and code enforcement officers.
The switch of the light shall also be accessible to turn on by the passenger.
7. Anyone witnessed by any person with clear evidence or by any law or code enforcement officers buying or selling taxi-cab fares, both the giver and the receiver shall receive a citation for a least $1,000.00 each if it is their first offense.
8. For second and more offenses, at the discretion of the court additional penalties shall be applied. In addition to the Court penalty, repeat offenders can see their fine double, triple, quadruple, quintuple and even more.
(b) Airport taxi stand.
- International airports should provide a taxi lot or a stand which should be able to hold at least 1,500 taxi-cabs in order to prepare for the next century. They must be opened to any taxi-cab of their county in order to pick up passengers, regardless of their company affiliation. Passengers will benefit from competition through lower prices and better services.
- For counties with international airports having a population of less than 2,500,000 people should create a taxi lot that can accommodate a minimum of 1,500 taxi-cabs. However, for counties with a population higher than 2,500,000 inhabitants, a taxi lot with a minimum holding capacity of 2,000 taxi-cabs should be created.
Whereas there is not enough space in order to accommodate this quantity of vehicles, high rise parking lot with several stories adjacent to the airport terminal shall be built in order to meet those needs.
C. Taxi-cab drivers shall have basic knowledge about searching the world-wide web and be able to maintain an e-mail account for continuing education. A continuing education (CE) shall set by State or local jurisdiction. Continuing education (CE) credit shall have set hour requirements over a period of years with specific hour requirements for special topics including, but not limited to, technology, ethics, diversity trainings, computer, elimination of bias and greed, mechanic, professional responsibility, good attitude, basic skills, substance abuse, professionalism, first aid, emergency, prevention of malpractice, chauffeur-client disputes, economy, finance, investment, license, insurance, security and other topics. Credit towards fulfilling continuing education (CE) requirements shall obtained by attending classes, courses, seminars, on-line as part of distance education courses or by listening to audio downloads, self-study and by teaching or being part of a panel on a specific topic at a national or State convention of a taxi organization. Cab driver professional license is renewable every four years.
D. For security purpose taxi-cab vehicle shall be equipped with:
(1) A surveillance video camera to monitor inside and outside of the vehicle. No one has the right of the content of the storage and the monitoring shall not be made by a third party without the full approval of the driver.
(2) A partition or a bullet-proof cabin which separates the passenger and the chauffeur for safety purposes. No private vehicle shall be used in order to provide public transportation, for-hire service of any kind and taxi-cab service.
(3) Two dark move lights one in front and the other in the rear in order to warn law enforcements, pedestrians and operators of other vehicles that there is an emergency situation inside the vehicle.
E. The type of technology used in order to offer the dispatching service to the public does not matter. In order to protect the consumer and the cab driver, taxi-cab dispatching services shall be provided by taxi-cab companies only. At any time, a motor vehicle (including hybrid or non-hybrid, electrical or non-electrical) having a capacity of not more than 8 passengers (including the driver), not operated on a regular route or between specified places (including luxury and non-luxury motor vehicles used in order to provide transportation service as well as those in 49 USC § 13102 (22)), such dispatching services shall be available only to licensed taxi-cab drivers operating licensed vehicles. The maximum taxi cab fares set by each local jurisdiction shall apply to all vehicles using such dispatching services.
F. In order that consumers can get a cheap meter fare, and to allow cab drivers within the same company and those from different companies to compete with each other, State and local jurisdiction shall have the
power to put an upper limit on the meter rate, but shall not have the power to fix the rate.
(c) Limousine Service Definition
The term "limousine service" means passenger transportation in a motor vehicle having a minimum seating capacity of not less than nine (9) passengers (including the driver), not operated on a regular route or between specified places, and that—
(A) is licensed as a limousine by a State or a local jurisdiction; or
(B) is offered by a person that—
(i) provides local transportation arranged in advance by telephone, fax, electronic mail, or software application, but no street hailing, for a fare determined (except with respect to transportation to or from airports) primarily on the basis of the distance or/and time traveled;
and
(ii) does not primarily provide transportation to or from airports.
(d) Taxi medallion violated the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment of the United States constitution. Therefore, it is prohibited.
(e) In order to comply with 49 USC § 13102 (22), 49 USC § 13101(D), and other section of the code, State or local jurisdiction shall license all motor vehicle having a capacity of not more than eight (8) passengers (including the driver), not operated on a regular route or between specified places, including luxury and non-luxury motor vehicles, as a taxicab not as another form of transportation.
(f) Cab drivers are entitled to use any bank credit card processing machine or credit card processing equipment of their choices patented by United States Patent and Trade Mark Office in order to process payments.
(g) 49 USC § 13506 (a) (2) is deleted.
(h) To use, drive, or operate a motor carrier or motor vehicle in order to carry passenger, luggage or goods, the following requirements must be met.
(1) An occupational and a professional license applicable to that mode of transportation must be obtained from the applicable state or local government jurisdiction;
(2) The carrier's or company's name, logo and telephone number shall be displayed on the left door or on the left side of the vehicle and on the right door or the right side of the vehicle;
(3) The company's name, logo and telephone number shall be non-removable; and
(4) The company's logo shall be at least fourteen inches in diameter.
(i) It shall be unlawful for any person to use a motor vehicle or golf cart style motor vehicle (whether electric or non-electric) in order to carry people or goods on a free ride basis in order to obtain a gratuity unless it is:
(1) A motor vehicle transporting only school children and/or teachers to or from school.
(2) A motor vehicle owned or operated by or for a hotel and used only transporting hotel patrons between the hotel and the local station of a motor carrier.
(3) A motor vehicle controlled and operated by a farmer and transporting;
(A) The farmer's agricultural or horticultural commodities and products; or
(B) Supplies to the farm of the farmer.
(4) The operation of a motor vehicle in a national park or national monument.
(5) A motor vehicle carrying not more than 15 individuals in a single, daily rountrip to commute to and from work.
(j) Taxi-cab or taxi dispatching service definition
Taxi-cab or taxi dispatching is a service that assigns and connects to passenger(s) a motor vehicle of not more than eight seating capacity and with a professional driver via two way radio, phone call, text message, mobile web application technology, fax, mobile social networking, internet-enabled technology, computer, World Wide Web, application software technology, digital platform and/or other forms of communication systems in order to provide transportation and taxi-cab service.
COMMENTS FOR 49 USC 14105 (b) "Airport Taxi Stand"
Whereas there is not enough space in order to accommodate this quantity of vehicles, high rise parking lot with several stories adjacent to the airport terminal shall be built in order to meet those needs. In most jurisdiction, the drivers are willing to pay for the expenses associated with the building of the taxi lot, as cabbies will be free from a $20,000.00 to $50,000.00 lease per year. As a result, no Federal or State grants are needed where they are not available. It is a win-win situation.
Rental car companies, buses, Shuttles, customer parking lots have enough parking spaces for their vehicles. As a result, cab drivers claim the same rights because in Miami, Florida each professional taxi driver pays the airport a fee which is more than $2,000.00 a year in order to park.
Today, public transportation is by far one of the fastest growing sources of revenue for our local governments. For example, in Miami, Florida a professional cab driver spends more than $5,000.00 in tolls and gas taxes per year. This is at least twice as much money as 50% of property owners pay as property taxes in Miami Dade County. It is almost double the median property tax in Miami-Dade County, Florida of about $2,600.00.
Under the umbrella of the United States Bill of Rights and the Antitrust Law, Fifth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations, we need to deregulate taxi-cab medallion (for-hire license) and the entire taxi-cab industry. Consequently, Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, the White House, Congress, civil rights organizations like NAACP, IJ, ACLU, and NAAG should step in, to protect the consumers, the cab drivers and deregulate taxi-cab medallions.
The same way Congress did for the airlines, trucking and railroad industry. Deregulation will lower the meter fares, create new jobs, increase competition, more economically disadvantage individual will be able to ride taxi-cab, increase interstate and intrastate tourists, bring better service to consumers, putting better and more equipped eight passenger seat hybrid vehicles on the road with handicap accessibility and several child safety seats on board all in one for five years old and under, camera, GPS system, credit card machine, computerized meter system with printing capability, partition or bullet proof cabin for security with strong automatic lock in order to guarantee payment in risky areas. As a result, taxi drivers will reach their economic freedom and we will have a stronger national economy, etc.
