Cleaning-up the air is always in everyone’s best interest, and one big way to make an impact on air quality is for a community or city (or nation) to mandate the use of alternative fuels or gas/electric hybrids for public transportation and taxis. A battle involving these kinds of vehicles is shaping-up in New York City, and what comes of it will have far-reaching consequences for cities around the world – and air quality.
Back in the 1960s, I remember Life Magazine cover stories about the growing air pollution problem in the world’s big cities, including and especially Tokyo. Japan’s largest city had what was then some of the world’s worst air.
According to cleanairnet.org, in Japan, 260,000 taxis, 94 percent of the total number of taxis in
the country, use LPG as their fuel. The mandated use of propane resulted in cleaner air and freed Japan’s taxis from having to rely on imported oil and gasoline. These days, Mount Fuji, about 80 miles south of Tokyo, is often visible from the capital, a big change there from the ‘60s and ‘70s. (Above and below, a Toyota Prius gas/electric hybrid in line for fares at the main train station of all Japan, Tokyo Station, Steve Parker photos; Center, This Chrysler PT Cruiser is dressed for work; its small engine gets good mileage and is light on emissions, too, but don't know about stuffing 5 or 6 people and their luggage into one of these).
What’s at stake in a battle between all the principals involved – carmakers, a powerful NYC commission and other varied and interested parties - is the use of alt fuel and hybrid cars and trucks as taxis there, home to the biggest fleet of cabs in the US. In fact, There are 13,087 taxis operating in New York City, not including over 40,000 other for-hire vehicles.
The battle is all over the bulletproof plastic partition, mandated by law in NYC, which separate the driver from his or her fares, and its possible effect on airbags and other passive and active safety devices.
Toyota and Honda have issued outright warnings against using their hybrid vehicles as commercial cabs. In addition, Ford, General Motors and Nissan have refused to certify the crashworthiness of their hybrid taxis, modified with mandatory partitions. Instead, the automakers shifted that responsibility to the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC), which has shifted it to the federal government -- which does not require automakers to crash test vehicles modified with the hard, bulletproof taxi partitions.
Click below for more on NYC cabs and why the whole world is watching this fight to make hybrids, clean-diesels and other alternative-fuel vehicles legal to be taxicabs in New York City ...
So let me get this straight (and please chime-in whenever ready) – Because the federal government “does not require automakers to crash test vehicles modified with the … partitions,” then Washington is left holding the bag, so to speak, when it comes to any liability resulting from someone being injured in one of these cabs.
This seems a real good dose of avoiding responsibility. Teams of lawyers from all sides of this issue are in
the fight, which involves, potentially, tens or maybe hundreds of millions of dollars in car purchases. This scheme of approving hybrids for use as taxis by the federal government raises huge liability questions, which unfortunately brings up this specter: That of hybrids and alt fuel cars and trucks not allowed to be used as taxis in the city with more taxis than any other in the country. Every city in the US is following this still-emerging story closely. (Potential cab drivers and their fares get up close and personal with a Ford Escape gas/electric hybrid all dolled-up in its finest taxicab livery at the 2008 NY Auto Show; Below left, a Nissan Altima hybrid which uses Toyota's hybrid system under license and might be a tad small to be a cab in NYC; Below right, Peugeot displayed their 908 HDi LMP1 turbodiesel-powered sports car at the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show; Steve Parker photo).
In late 2007, the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) mandated that all new taxis, the vast majority of which are required to have partitions, be hybrids or other vehicles that can achieve 25 miles-per-gallon. This meant that the old “king of the streets,” the stretched Ford Crown Victoria, was out of the taxi game.
The Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade has mounted a legal challenge, citing a 2008 engineer's report that finds hybrids to be unsafe and unfit as New York City taxicabs.
Having visited Japan many times over the past 30 years, I was impressed during my most recent visit (November, 2007) with how many taxis – in Tokyo and small country towns alike – were hybrids, mostly Prius sedans. They were easy to spot waiting for fares in the long queues at Tokyo Station and the Imperial Hotel, for instance, as well as at train stations in smaller, out of the way places like Fuji-no-miya. 
Partitions - especially thick, bulletproof ones - between cab drivers and their passengers would seem grossly out of place in Japan, where violent crime and muggings are barely a blip on any measurable scale. But I’d bet that out of the hundreds of cab rides I’ve taken in Japan, a good 75 percent of the drivers were chain smokers, so maybe some kind of partition between the driver and passengers would be a good, even healthy, idea.
The gist of a lengthy PR release says that GM (Malibu hybrid), Toyota (Prius, Highlander hybrids), Ford (Escape hybrid), Nissan (Altima hybrid) and other hybrid-makers refuse to certify or approve their hybrids for use as NYC taxis; that if a city wants to allow their use, the carmakers won’t take any responsibility for injuries and accidents involving the bulletproof partitions which NYC (and other cities in the US and around the world) demands.
It seems the worst that can happen is these partitions could somehow block or deflect side airbags, rear
airbags and side curtain airbags. Certainly there’s also the chance of injury from someone being thrown into the partition itself, with their seat belt being used or not.
None of these alleged potential problems seem insurmountable, however, and it would be to everyone’s benefit to overcome these purported problems and allow the use of hybrid – and clean-diesel and other alt fuel - cars and trucks in as many places and for as many reasons as possible.
This whole objective to 'control' what vehicle is used for NYC taxi work is flawed from the start.
What they are really trying to do is correct all of the drawbacks of 'partitioned' taxis. I've offered a solution for over 30 years now, but it might involve admission of considerable prior errors engaged in by the NYC TLC.
The partitions are a miserable failure on two fronts. First, murders rise because knifes are rendered much less viable with a partition, so thugs switch to guns. Second, the injuries inflicted due to the hazardous, illegal design flaws inherent in current taxi-partition designs.
Aside from doing what they shouldn't do,and not doing what they should do, regarding assault or collision injury... they create an adversarial atmosphere and are a constant source of irritation for driver and passenger alike who suffer from not being able to communicate without screaming.
SWC
Posted by: Steven Crowell | May 07, 2009 at 07:06 AM