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NYC May Soon Be Liberated From The Tyranny Of Taxi TVs
By
Lauren Evans
Published Oct 13, 2015
Modified Oct 13, 2015
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By
Lauren Evans
Published Oct 13, 2015
Modified Oct 13, 2015
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When the time finally arrives for the mouth of Hell to open and swallow you whole, it will not be the fiery winds or the vast, endless darkness that will herald regret of your misspent life. It will be the sound—the unceasing, electronic chime, one you heard over and over and over again every time you entered a cab for nine years. Your fingers will grasp the turgid air in search of the "mute" button, but in Hell, just as on Earth, the mute button is broken. You begin to scream, but your screams are swallowed by the vast maw of eternal blackness. "Bloop bleep," sings the chime, drowning your shrieks.
All of that will come, later. But for now, the Taxi and Limousine Commission is voting on a proposal today that would banish Taxi TVs from the city's green and yellow cabs, thanks to rampant unpopularity of the devices among both drivers and passengers.
“The TLC regularly receives complaints from passengers and drivers about the Taxi TV, the responsiveness of its screen, the noise it generates and the repetitive media content it plays,” the proposal says. “Both drivers and passengers routinely report to the TLC that they find the default settings and volume on the Taxi TV distracting and that the ‘mute’ and ‘off’ buttons on the Taxi TV often do not work."
The TVs were initially phased in around 2006, with the goal of creating ad revenue for fleet owners and a modicum of backseat entertainment to passengers. Instead, vendors Creative Mobile Technologies and Verifone pissed everyone off by forcing obnoxious programming on all who entered the cab.
“All I do is listen to people in the back seat trying to turn it off,” one driver told the Post, adding that he even offered passengers $1 to turn the infernal thing off.
It's about damn time, anyway. A 2011 TLC survey found that the TVs were the second biggest criticism from cab riders, the first being the high price of fare. The two vendors acquiesced to lowering the TVs' initial volume, but everyone knows that those volume buttons are purely decorative.
The proposal is expected to pass, and if it does, medallion owners can pay to have their screens removed, replacing them instead with smartphone or tablet payment systems. Maybe this time it will actually happen! And to the Taxi TVs: See you in Hell.
Tagged
cabs
noise pollution
Taxi TV
taxis
tlc
Lauren Evans
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