The Chainlink

Cab driver hits and kills man on sidewalk at Milwaukee and Chicago

This morning, 6:15 am, cab driver veers onto sidewalk, hits a light pole, flips the cab four times or more, and hits and kills a 30-year-old man who was sitting on a bench waiting for the bus. So horrible. One commenter at the end of the story said her boyfriend witnessed this and estimated the cab driver was going 60 mph.

 

Tribune story is here.

 

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Permalink Reply by John Greenfield on August 15, 2012 at 11:38am

My first reaction was to blame the cab driver for this tragedy, but after finding out more about him I believe it makes sense to withhold judgement until the authorities investigate this further. He did have 28 tickets on his record, but that was over a 25-year career, only about one per year, which is a reasonable number. He hadn't received any tickets since 2009 and the city had no records of complaints about his driving. He appeared in a 1992 Tribune article about catching a cab to Peotone - he comes across as a responsible, likeable person. He doesn't seem like the kind of cabbie who would voluntarily drive dozens of miles over the speed limit, so it seems possible his vehicle malfunctioned.


Here's our write-up of the case on Grid Chicago: http://gridchicago.com/2012/fatality-tracker-speeding-cab-hits-pole...

Permalink Reply by Doug Haynes on August 15, 2012 at 11:41am

Before you go out and decry people unsafe drivers due to the number of violations they have we need to stop and think about numbers for a second...

Most people who drive on a regular basis, call it more than 4-5 times a week, get tickets during the course of their life.  I am not sure what the average is but almost every person I know has had at least one traffic ticket in their adult life.

The average driver spends an hour or two in their car a day at the outside.  I bet for most it is even less than that.  Most of that time for the average commuter is also spent on the highway where there is less enforcement and fewer places to get nabbed by 'The Man.'  Cab drivers spend 8 hours, or more, behind the wheel each day and they spend almost all of it in heavy congestion and stop and go traffic.  At that point when you consider just how much driving they do a ticket per year or so is not that unreasonable.

Speeding and rolling stops are something almost every driver does, many just don't get the tickets for it because they are not doing it as often as the guy who drives 8 hours a day. 

Liz said:

I honestly hope one or more of these pedestrian fatality cases results in a lawsuit for allowing dangerous drivers to keep their chauffeur license.  It may finally get the city to yank licenses for those who have have too many violations written against them, regardless of dismissal.  The review process for cab drivers needs to be much more strict than it is today. 

"Most of the tickets were written by Chicago police officers, and the city's Law Department by rule handles nearly all of those cases. For the 28 cabdrivers studied by the Tribune, the Law Department's dismissal rate was 75 percent.

Yet the dismissal rate was less than 40 percent for county prosecutors, who handle tickets issued by the Illinois State Police, some written outside Chicago and the most serious ones issued in the city."



Cameron Puetz said:

More on the number of tickets that cab drivers get dismissed:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-09-23/news/ct-met-chicago-t...

Cameron Puetz said:

Sadly, that's pretty typical for a Chicago cab driver. They are very good at getting tickets dismissed so that they are able to keep driving.



rb said:

that is horrible. My thoughts go out to all the families.

Cabs scare me especially here in Chicago. 30 tickets seems to be excessive- wonder how someone can accrue that many and still have a license.

Permalink Reply by Liz on August 15, 2012 at 11:51am


I understand that a cab driver is more likely to get an increase in small violations, I'm suggesting that I total count of say 10 dismissed violations/speeding camera tickets and red light tickets with in 1 year period would be grounds for revoking a license.  Also a review of the dismissed tickets should be done, dismissed tickets for speeding 20 mph over the limit should hold more weight than a stop sign.  This allows more than enough leeway to account for the time spent driving.  Spending a lot of time driving doesn't mean that repeated infractions should be ignored.  

While I understand this driver hasn't had tickets recently, and therefore wouldn't be subject to revoking even with new standards, it would provide an incentive for drivers to follow traffic laws or risk loosing their license.  

Truck drivers are often held to higher standards despite spending large amounts of time behind the wheel. 


notoriousDUG said:

Before you go out and decry people unsafe drivers due to the number of violations they have we need to stop and think about numbers for a second...

Most people who drive on a regular basis, call it more than 4-5 times a week, get tickets during the course of their life.  I am not sure what the average is but almost every person I know has had at least one traffic ticket in their adult life.

The average driver spends an hour or two in their car a day at the outside.  I bet for most it is even less than that.  Most of that time for the average commuter is also spent on the highway where there is less enforcement and fewer places to get nabbed by 'The Man.'  Cab drivers spend 8 hours, or more, behind the wheel each day and they spend almost all of it in heavy congestion and stop and go traffic.  At that point when you consider just how much driving they do a ticket per year or so is not that unreasonable.

Speeding and rolling stops are something almost every driver does, many just don't get the tickets for it because they are not doing it as often as the guy who drives 8 hours a day. 


Permalink Reply by Rich S on August 15, 2012 at 12:08pm
I disagree that 1 violation per year is acceptable. Both of my parents drove taxis for over 15 years and at most they were getting a ticket every 2-3 years. My Dad never got into any accidents and my Mom had two. One was a rear end collision while she was stopped at a red light. The other was spinning out on black ice at 5am on the Kennedy but she didn't hit anybody else. Thankfully she came out of both more shaken than hurt. My Mom now drives a limo and got her first ticket about 6 months ago from the last 4-5 years. She has yet to get a red light violation in the mail Both of my parents prided themselves as being professional chauffeurs and not just drivers.
Permalink Reply by Josh.E on August 15, 2012 at 12:33pm

One thing that i haven't seen was if the cab was maintained properly.  I've ridden in cabs that haven't been maintained properly be it ball joints knocking, squealing brakes almost bald tires.  Some of these companies have "back alley mechanic fixes" just to save a couple of bucks like removing the low brake indicator so it wont squeal just to get a few more miles out of the brakes. The majority of these cabs are old police cars that have been retired because they have too many miles most have just under 100,000 miles and can't pass the inspection that they are required to have just about every week.  Doesn't matter who the driver is at that point if they are in a crap car then things like this could happen.  

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on August 15, 2012 at 12:49pm

That's a very good question.  I've had similar experiences in some cabs.  A police officer friend has told some tales about cheapo late night mechanics who keep some cabs on the road that probably should have been scrapped years ago.

I certainly get John's point about not passing judgment prematurely.  However, it's extremely difficult to believe that a vehicle could get out of control on a city street to the point of reaching 100 mph without some fault on the part of the driver.  I'll look forward to hearing more details as they become available.

Josh.E said:

One thing that i haven't seen was if the cab was maintained properly.  I've ridden in cabs that haven't been maintained properly be it ball joints knocking, squealing brakes almost bald tires.  Some of these companies have "back alley mechanic fixes" just to save a couple of bucks like removing the low brake indicator so it wont squeal just to get a few more miles out of the brakes. The majority of these cabs are old police cars that have been retired because they have too many miles most have just under 100,000 miles and can't pass the inspection that they are required to have just about every week.  Doesn't matter who the driver is at that point if they are in a crap car then things like this could happen.  

Permalink Reply by Michelle Loomis on August 15, 2012 at 12:52pm

I agree with you here! My mom has worked as a professional driver for a hospital for over 25 years. In all that time driving 8 hours a day for work plus ~2 hours getting to/from work and running erronds, she has NEVER had a moving violation. The behaviour of these cab drives on the road in Chicago is unacceptable.  

Rich S said:

I disagree that 1 violation per year is acceptable. Both of my parents drove taxis for over 15 years and at most they were getting a ticket every 2-3 years. My Dad never got into any accidents and my Mom had two. One was a rear end collision while she was stopped at a red light. The other was spinning out on black ice at 5am on the Kennedy but she didn't hit anybody else. Thankfully she came out of both more shaken than hurt. My Mom now drives a limo and got her first ticket about 6 months ago from the last 4-5 years. She has yet to get a red light violation in the mail Both of my parents prided themselves as being professional chauffeurs and not just drivers.
Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on August 15, 2012 at 12:55pm

I have, and I would again if I felt my safety was being compromised by a poor cab driver -or any other driver for that matter.   But after traveling outside of the USA my calibration has been slightly skewed.  Cab drivers by and far operate in a safe and sane manner when compared to the rest of the world.  We are very lucky that things are nowhere near as bad as much of the rest of the world.  When I was in Peru a couple of years ago I just opted for a blindfold and a rosary.  It was just easier that way.  Walking wasn't an option.

notoriousDUG said:

Lets turn it around.  Would you get out of a cab where the driver was acting in a unprofessional manner?


Permalink Reply by Rich S on August 15, 2012 at 2:06pm
Deal! Although we'll have to have one together on their behalf. My Mom rides her bike every now and again but I can't quite picture her coming on marauders!



Serge Lubomudrov said:

You should invite your rodzicieli to one of the Chainlink events, so I can buy them a drink :)

Rich S said:

I disagree that 1 violation per year is acceptable. Both of my parents drove taxis for over 15 years and at most they were getting a ticket every 2-3 years. My Dad never got into any accidents and my Mom had two. One was a rear end collision while she was stopped at a red light. The other was spinning out on black ice at 5am on the Kennedy but she didn't hit anybody else. Thankfully she came out of both more shaken than hurt. My Mom now drives a limo and got her first ticket about 6 months ago from the last 4-5 years. She has yet to get a red light violation in the mail Both of my parents prided themselves as being professional chauffeurs and not just drivers.
Permalink Reply by spencewine on August 16, 2012 at 11:13am
Permalink Reply by Duppie on August 16, 2012 at 3:21pm

speaking of considerate...

Yesterday I saw a cab with a right side mirror for passgengers It was mounted on the right pasenger door and stuck out only a few inches. Looked like a neat solution to reduce the potential of being doored by exiting passengers
...



Serge Lubomudrov said:

Here you go . . .

. . . From my interactions with taxi cabs while riding a bicycle, I daresay the majority of them are dangerous. This is just an observation, of course.

The opposite is very seldom in my experience. I still remember the cab (number 3429) whose driver was so considerate and careful passing me and other cyclists, that I thanked the driver when I caught up with him on a red light, and commended his performance on 311 website.

spencewine said:

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on August 16, 2012 at 4:04pm

Excellent!

Duppie said:

speaking of considerate...

Yesterday I saw a cab with a right side mirror for passgengers It was mounted on the right pasenger door and stuck out only a few inches. Looked like a neat solution to reduce the potential of being doored by exiting passengers
...

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