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

[Tracy Carcione]

Dan, I so totally agree with what you say.
Why is following the law optional when it comes to taxi drivers?!

And I love that--wants someone who speaks English and is not an idiot.
Tracy


> Granted, Sherri,  the wording is regrettable, but the fact is we're not
> going to win on some of these points and in the case of the article  we'd
> be
> missing the forest for the trees  pointing that out,, or however that
> goes.
> At lease when I lived in Maryland I can tell you that access was a problem
> when it came to cabs.
> And, those friends of mine who lived in DC would confirm the estimate of
> half the drivers passing by or not taking you.
>
> This is the height of absurdity and even shameful, that we've had eighty
> years of guide dog training here in the USA and it's still that way.
> And like it or not, nine times out of ten in my neck of the woods in
> Maryland it was people from the mid East, Africa and Asia, emigrants in
> other words, who did the worst offending in this regard. This is the first
> time in my life, sorry to say, that I started feeling a real hostility to
> emigrants, who, in my way of thinking, were dishing out to people from
> here
> worse treatment then they were getting. They had jobs and could find them
> quickly again, no skin off their nose to treat a blind person like dirt.
> And, guys, don't start with me the old chorus of how they're afraid of
> dogs,
> etc. I couldn't care less, it isn't a dog popularity contest we're in
> here.
> The reasons are immaterial to me, how to reverse this trend is what I'm
> interested in.
>
>
> Sad but true it was a lot of folks from other lands who did this.
> .
> Not  that there weren't any good old native American born, white and black
> guys, who had their chance to step up to the plate and be butt holes
> because
> there were.
> So, you were lucky if you got drivers who knew you, or I'd take numbers of
> cabbies I liked and give them some business on the side, but frankly, the
> fact that we have  to do that means there's something seriously wrong.
> I mention that because some blind friends there said rather
> superciliously,
> "well, what I do is make sure I get the drivers who don't mind dogs".  I'm
> beating my head against a wall, here, guys, but the cabbies are supposed
> to
> take us, ain't up to us to get a little black book of people who decide
> it's
> convenient to follow the law.
> Now, here in Florida, I've only taken a few cabs recently as I'm trying to
> save money, so what can you tell me about access here, or Marian in Tampa,
> etc?
>
> There would be only two reasons that at some point I decide not to choose
> a
> guide dog as my main means of mobility:
> 1.  It's hard on me to see them get old and so on, very hard.
> 2. This access situation.
> When I call a cab, I should not have to have my heart in my mouth
> wondering
> whether they're going to see me and drive away.  One of the drivers who
> liked me told me that several of them who didn't like dogs would just not
> come if they knew it was a dog user and say they came and I wasn't there,
> or
> other little tricks.
> In Prince George's County, Maryland, the company had some GPs system
> whereby
> they could tell which driver was nearest to whatever location I was
> calling
> from and he would be assigned.  Now, that would mean I could very often
> and
> would get a person for whatever reason, decided to drive away or in some
> other way treat me like the scum of the Earth because I dare to want to be
> independent and use a guide dog.
>
> Of course they're computers, the cab company's may not be the most
> accurate,
> I called once from my cell phone when at Dunkin'' Doughnuts and every time
> I
> called from my cell  they'd say "Oh, we'll send someone to the Dunkin'
> Doughnuts, and I had to make sure they got it before they hung up.
> One day I got really frustrated and said, I don't care who you send but
> make
> it someone who understands English and make sure they're not an idiot."
> I swear, one of the cab drivers thought this was funny because whatever
> dispatcher had put that under my phone number on the computer, so it would
> come up as "has a guide dog, wants someone who understands English,
> doesn't
> want an idiot.".
> Still, all of those qualifications didn't help sometimes--smile
>
> Rant over
>
>
> Dan W.
>
>
>
>
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