NYC Cab Driver Refuses To Pick Up TV Reporter Al Roker

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NYC Cab Driver Refuses To Pick Up TV Reporter Al Roker

February 2nd, 2016

Awake Goy

NBC reporter attempts to hail a cab in NYC.

NBC reporter Al Roker attempts to hail a cab in NYC.

It is illegal for cab drivers to refuse to pick up a passenger because of the passenger’s race, disability, or chosen destination within the five boroughs of New York City (NYC). In November, 2015, A NYC taxi cab driver who is from Bangladesh, passed up Al Roker, who is black, and picked up a white fare in the next block. Roker, a weatherman on NBC television’s The Today Show, filed an official complaint with the Taxi and Limousine Commission. The cab driver reportedly told a New York newspaper that he didn’t see Roker and that the incident was a mistake.

According to Roker who wrote on Twitter, “[the driver] pulled up, I reached for the door, [the driver] took off and went for the guy a block away. He saw me and took another fare.” Roker’s teenage son was with him and seemed baffled by the driver’s action. When he asked Roker why a driver would pass them up in favor of a white guy a block away, Roker answered, “…Ignorant people make dumb choices.”

The Taxi and Limousine Commission Chairperson issued a statement that read in part, “Service refusal goes to the core of the taxi industry’s social contract with the riding public and it will not be tolerated.” The Commission accepted the driver’s plea of guilty to a service refusal violation and gave the driver two options: pay a $500 fine or have a hearing where he could possibly have his license suspended for up to 30 days. In January, 2016 he paid the fine. This is not the first complaint against the cabbie. Earlier in the year he was fined $200 for refusing to pick up a passenger.

Although Roker alleged in his complaint that he was ignored for another fare because of racial reasons, the cab driver was apparently not fined for racial discrimination. The Daily Mail reports that another cab driver was fined $25,000 for refusing to pick up a black woman and her daughters.

Roker also tweeted, “This happens to folks of color every day. And while most cabbies do their jobs, there are those ignorant, racist ones who hurt others” and “The majority of cab drivers do their job as expected.”