[Flagdu] Cab drivers in DC pass blind people with guide dogs

Sun Sep 5 09:12:13 UTC 2010

Ralph,
    Please see my previous message.

Fraternally yours,
Marion

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "ralph narducci" <spadad1 at yahoo.com>
To: "Florida Association of Guide Dog Users" <flagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 04, 2010 11:12 PM
Subject: Re: [Flagdu] Cab drivers in DC pass blind people with guide dogs

yes for well over twenty years,yet nothing has been done about it. NFB 
power?
where?

________________________________
From: Sherri <flmom2006 at gmail.com>
To: NAGDU Mailing List <nagdu at nfbnet.org>; Florida Association of Guide Dog
Users <flagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sat, September 4, 2010 11:02:30 PM
Subject: [Flagdu] Cab drivers in DC pass blind people with guide dogs

An interesting message. Just giving credit to the sender. Wonder what would
happen if we did a similar study in say the Tampa or Orlando area? Only 
problem
I have with the article is that it said the blind people were "put" in 
certain
places. I would have preferred the word "stood", because being "put" makes 
us
sound like inanimate objects! Just being picky I guess.

Sherri
From: leadership-bounces at acb.org [mailto:leadership-bounces at acb.org] On 
Behalf
Of Eric Bridges
Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2010 1:04 PM
To: leadership at acb.org; announce at acb.org
Subject: [leadership] In study, half of D.C. cab drivers pass by blind 
people
with guide dogs

The below article appears in today's Washington Post. ACB is proud to have
provided all of the testers for this study and looks forward to continuing 
our
work with the Equal Rights

Center.

Eric

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/01/AR2010090102344.html

By Henri E. Cauvin

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 1, 2010; 10:04 AM

In a study by a civil rights watchdog group, taxi drivers in the District 
often
drove past blind people who were trying to hail a cab while accompanied by 
guide
dogs.

This Story

In study, half of D.C. cab drivers pass by blind people with guide dogs

Shedding light on sidewalk safety

The Equal Rights Center, in a report released Wednesday morning, said it
conducted 30 tests earlier this year and that in half of the tests, drivers
passed a man or woman with a guide dog to pick up a person who did not have 
a
guide dog. In three of the cases where the taxi did stop for the blind 
person,
the driver attempted to impose a surcharge for transporting the dog, the 
Equal
Rights Center said.

Under local and federal law, businesses, including taxis, must make 
reasonable
accommodations to blind people and their service dogs and may not impose
surcharges for transporting a service dog. But blind people in the District 
have
complained for years that some taxi drivers flout the law.

Prompted by such concerns, the Equal Rights Center, which is part of the
Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, undertook 
an
investigation, assisted by the law firm Hogan Lovells.

In each of the 30 tests, which were conducted between March and May, the 
Equal
Rights Centers placed a blind person with a guide dog and a sighted person 
on a
high-traffic thoroughfare in the city. The blind person was placed about 100
feet closer to oncoming traffic so that he or she would be the first 
prospective
passenger a taxi would encounter.

With a video camera rolling, the Equal Rights Center recorded 15 taxis 
bypassing
the blind passenger for the sighted person standing farther away. Video 
clips of
some of the encounters can be seen here. In its report, the Equal Rights 
Center
said its findings made clear that more needs to be done to ensure that the
rights of blind people are protected. Taxi drivers in the District and 
elsewhere
have long faced scrutiny for passing up prospective black passengers, and
several years ago, the D.C. police conducted sting operations intended to 
deter
discrimination by taxi drivers.

The Equal Rights Center said that the police, the D.C. Taxi Commission and 
the
D.C. Office of Human Rights need to adopt a more aggressive approach to
addressing taxi-driver bias against the blind, stepping up both education 
and
enforcement.

"The law is in place," said Ashley N. White, outreach manager for the Equal
Rights Center, "but no one is really enforcing it."

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