This section of  Las Vegas Taxi Driver is unedited entries from public complaints taken from an unsecured complaint web-page operated by the Nevada Taxicab Authority (since disabled).

TA as they are known, is the regulatory agency which oversees the taxicab industry in Clark County Nevada. Their main responsibility is to represent and protect the best interests of the riding public. They have a Public Trust Fiduciary responsibility by State charter.

It is part of my intention by posting these complaints to show TA does not really care about the public. They care not enough even to operate a secure complaint system. I would also submit most of these complaints are never followed up and TA does not do anything edgewise regarding these complaints.

I am interested in showing the poor quality of the job being done by TA by issuing Drivers Permits to people who clearly have no business driving a Taxicab in a major Tourist Destination. These complaints are really more about the poor job TA is doing than about the particular complaint or the parties directly involved. Many of these issues are nothing more than descriptions about people who should never have been licensed to drive hack in the first place.

TA also fails miserably in informing the riding public about using taxis in Las Vegas. They offer no brochures explaining “how Taxis work”. From reading the complaints, it should be clear many of these complaints arise from an uninformed riding public. In a Tourist market like Las Vegas, it is horrible operations to ignore this educational function. Many of the problems encountered would be avoided if people simply understood how taxis work in Las Vegas. TA does little to inform the public, I would submit this is no accident. Mandating little signs inside taxicabs (most mounted on the inside roofs in the front-seats) as the way the public can contact TA regarding poor service is little more than an admission by TA they could careless about you or your cab experience while in Las Vegas.

It should also be obvious from the many long-hauling complaints, TA, along with McCarran Airport, and others condone the routine ripping off of tourists thru the airport tunnel. Enforcement is non existent to the issue of long-hauling. Loses to the public easily counts into the millions of dollars a year in what is nothing but fraud. Enforcement is simple but is ignored. Ignored because TA knows the rate structure in Clark County is flawed.

Like most other metropolitan cities, there should be a flat-rate system used for all airport pick-ups. There is not a flat-rate system because there is more money to be made for Cab Owners with hundreds of cabbies fleecing the public by long-hauling thru the south airport connector tunnel. TA, in my opinion, is clearly protecting Cab Owners at the direct expense of the riding public by doing virtually no enforcement to stop long-hauling.

It is not a stretch, and the actual number is probably much higher, to claim at least 25 % of the rides coming out of McCarran Airport are long-hauls. That is hundreds of people being charged at least $10 more than they should be, day after day, month after month, year after year. Taxis in Las Vegas do over 22 million rides a year.

Long-hauling not only affects the public, it hurts honest taxi drivers. Long-hauling creates inflated shift averages. Drivers are held accountable for the money they produce during their shifts. Honest taxi drivers are always up against the averages inflated by chronic long-hauling from crook cabbies. The long-hauling problem feeds upon itself and most are harmed. As long-hauling is encouraged, more and more crooks are hired, more and more honest good drivers are pushed out of the industry. TA is a central part of the problem thru lack of enforcement and the issuing of permits to people obviously prone to stealing from the public. TA is totally to blame for Tourists being taken thru the McCarran Airport Tunnel and robbed an extra $10 by crooked cabbies and the Companies who employ them.

Taxicab long-hauling is also given tacit approval by Limo and Shuttle operators, some of which also operate the taxis, because long-hauling, and creating a sense amongst the public that taxis are over-priced and staffed by undesirables, creates more high-priced limo rides and shuttle trips out of McCarran. Many people, burned before, assume other options are cheaper and safer.

TA is also delinquent when it comes to the issue of Lost/Found items in taxicabs. Once again, as the public’s agent, TA needs to run the Lost and Found operation, not the current way with Cab companies and drivers handling the L&F Departments. Taxicab Authority washes it’s hands on this core responsibility as well and leaves you and your lost items up to the care of drivers who call women B*tches,  and cab companies who encourage long-hauling. Good luck getting your belongings back. Unless your driver is honest and goes out his or her way, the chances of you getting your belongs back are slim.

Taxicab Confessions is an inside look into an industry in trouble. In trouble because the regulatory agency entrusted to oversee things, Nevada Taxicab Authority, is dropping the ball across the board.

Unlike TA, who has no problem allowing your information to be available to any who really wants it, I am only going to post the report, not your information. It is not my intention to do further harm to you, it is only in exposing the doings of a corrupt and delinquent Governmental State Agency.

Thanks,

Unk

webmaster@lasvegas-taxidriver.com