New York, NY - Study Finds Cabbies Are Safe Drivers

New York, NY - A new study says, that NYC taxi driver's are the most likely to get you to your location safe and sound.
"You're less likely to be injured in the backseat of a cab, then if you are driving your own car or are an occupant in someone else's vehicle," said Bruce Schaller of Schaller Consulting.

Schaller says his PR firm decided to conduct a study of taxi and livery cab drivers on its own and was not commissioned by the TLC. He says accident reports from 2004 indicate that for every million miles traveled, 6.7 everyday drivers got into accidents. For taxi drivers, there were 4.6 accidents and livery cabs faired even better with only 3.7 drivers crashing their cars.

The TLC's commissioner says the results of this study don’t surprise him. “The TLC has consistently raised the bar in terms of its standards, what we require of them, and consistently they’ve met that bar and exceeded those standards,” said Matthew Daus of the TLC.

Cab drivers say if they weren't safe drivers it would only hurt them. Accidents mean higher insurance rates, time off the job and of course nasty reputations. "This is the job,” said cab driver Zulfy Mann. “Other drivers come to the city and look around, you know, look at this building; cab drivers don't look around. They are serious with the cab." "We are almost driving about 12, 14 hours a day, seven by 24,” said cab driver Luis Dacosta. “We very careful, so we professional, we know the streets, we know where we are going – right side, left side. We keep the speed under the limit under the limit, like 30 miles an hour."

While the study was pretty positive when it came to cab drivers, it wasn't all good news. The data showed that when taxi drivers do have accidents the passengers can be hurt worse than in their own cars.
The injuries are more serious because most passengers don't buckle up in cabs and because of that partition in the middle of the car.