NY to Require Medical Exams for Car Service Drivers

NEW YORK (Bloomberg) —
A police officer last Wednesday tows the car that was driving CBS correspondent Bob Simon following an accident in New York. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
A police officer last Wednesday tows the car that was driving CBS correspondent Bob Simon following an accident in New York. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

Rules taking effect Wednesday will require drivers of New York City black cars like the one that crashed and killed CBS News correspondent Bob Simon to take medical exams and pass a course on taxi regulations.

The car-service drivers, who handle mostly corporate clients, aren’t required to undergo the same screening as cabbies, including tests for English proficiency and city geography, according to a license-application checklist.

That’s about to change. The Taxi & Limousine Commission voted Dec. 18 to require prospective drivers to attend the equivalent of “taxi school” that all cabbies must attend. The requirements will kick in after they are published in the city record on Wednesday, said Greg Gordon, a spokesman for the commission.

Some regulations are the same for both taxi and car-service drivers. All must pass a drug test every year and complete a certified defensive-driving course. They must be at least 19, have a clean driver’s license, a valid Social Security card and no outstanding judgments for parking or red-light violations.

According to the New York Police Department, Simon was in the back seat of a Lincoln Town Car traveling south on 12th Avenue about 6:44 p.m. on Feb. 11 when it struck the driver’s side of a black 2003 Mercedes Benz stopped at a red light at West 30th Street.

The Town Car then careened into metal stanchions separating the lanes, leaving Simon with fatal injuries to his head and torso. He was 73.

The driver of the Town Car was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was initially listed in stable condition, police said. The driver of the Mercedes wasn’t hurt.

The driver of the Town Car, Abdul Reshad Fedahi, 44, had a probationary license from the TLC issued in October that after the accident was suspended under a city law passed last year, Gordon said.

Local Law 28, passed last year as part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Vision Zero program, requires the commission to review police probes of any crash involving a driver operating a TLC-licensed vehicle that results in death or critical injury.

The law also requires the commission to review the fitness of any driver involved in such a crash and to suspend the driver during the review.

New York City has more than 50,000 taxi drivers and 35,000 liveries and black cars, according to the TLC’s Taxicab Fact Book.

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