‘Hanging Dirty’ : Cabdrivers Risk a Ticket to Make a Decent Buck

Cabdriver Jim Clifton was “hanging dirty” at Lindbergh Field’s East Terminal, casting one wary eye in the rear-view mirror, watching for the police, while keeping the other on the line of cabs inching along in front him. Each of the 10 or so cabs ahead of Clifton--and those behind him--were stopped illegally on the roadway, inviting a $32 ticket.

Clifton and the others had a way to go before they could park legally in a taxi holding area already filled with about 20 cabs. The drivers park in that special zone while waiting for a spot to open in front of the terminal, where passengers are ushered into waiting taxis. Yellow Cab driver Hafezi Behzad said that he once got three tickets in one day for hanging dirty, but that unpleasant experience hasn’t deterred him or the other drivers from going after the lucrative fares at the airport.

“A cabdriver without tickets is like a mechanic without grease on his hands,” said Clifton, who drives for USA Taxi Cab Co., an association of 35 taxis. “You can’t make a living at this airport unless you hang dirty and get in line. If you don’t, somebody else will. It’s a game we play with the Harbor Police (who patrol the airport). They’re meter maids with guns.”

Driving a taxi at the airport is fiercely competitive because there are too many cabs licensed to work at Lindbergh Field. But that competition isn’t unique to the airport. Drivers, cab owners and officials who oversee the cab industry in San Diego say that since the taxi business was partly deregulated six years ago the number of cabs in the city has mushroomed to 903 from 410 in 1979. Two years ago, the city limited the number of cabs to 928.

“This city has more cabs than it needs. Just walk downtown and look at the number of cabs that are parked, waiting for a two- or three-dollar fare,” said John Hammond, president of Co-Op Cab Co., a cooperative of 80 cabs, three of which are owned by Hammond.

The surplus of taxicabs and the city’s laissez faire approach toward the industry have resulted in somewhat lower fares and a wide variation in fares. The individual companies are allowed to set their own rates below the maximum established by the city--$1.40 for the flag drop and $1.66 per mile.

Some of the rates are surprisingly cheap. For example, Coast Cab, an association of 44 cabs, charges $1 a flag drop and $1 a mile. However, according to the city, the average rates in San Diego are $1.20 for the drop and $1.40 per mile. In Los Angeles and San Francisco, where taxis are regulated, the fares are, respectively, $1.90 for the drop and $1.40 per mile, and $1.30 and $1.20.

But if San Diego’s taxi deregulation has led to intense competition and some cheaper fares, it also has held the average weekly wage for drivers to $135, just slightly higher than minimum wage, cab owners and drivers say. And to earn even that much, some drivers, especially those who are not authorized to pick up fares at the airport, have to work on and off for 18-hour shifts.

Barbara Lupro, paratransit administrator for the city, acknowledged that the city’s decision to deregulate the industry has brought some headaches. But she also said that finding a solution that will please drivers and owners can be just as troublesome.

“Presently, we are in a no-win situation,” Lupro said. “At one time we were told by the owners and drivers that 410 (cabs) was not enough and at another point they complained that 928 was too many. The $64 question is, ‘How many cabs should there be in San Diego?’ ”

Airport officials say that, of the 903 taxis licensed to operate in San Diego, only 450 have medallions that authorize them to pick up passengers at the airport. This group--the “anointed people,” according to San Diego Port District Director Don Nay--was chosen from 600 applicants two years ago. The 450 lucky medallion holders are divided into “odd and even” groups, so that on any given day 225 cabs are authorized to work out of the airport.

According to Lupro, there are about 300 cab companies in San Diego. Most are one-car companies affiliated with a radio dispatching service like Co-Op Cab and Orange Cab. Yellow Cab, which has 280 permits, is the largest, said Lupro.

“My responsibility ends at the airport,” Nay said. “But the problems we are experiencing at the airport are a measure of what is happening throughout the city. It really got to be troublesome when the city deregulated the cab industry. . . . It’s turned into a road merchant stall over there (at the airport), a bazaar because of the large number of cabs and the different fares. Honestly, I don’t understand how these guys can make a decent living.”

According to Safaa Kamel Saleh, who drives for Orange Cab, making a living is not easy. Orange Cab, an association of 125 cabs, is the second-largest taxi group in the city. Saleh, 27, has a master’s degree in engineering and is one of the fortunate drivers whose car has an airport medallion.

“On the days that I cannot work the airport, I really have to struggle working the streets in order to make my lease,” Saleh said. He and other drivers said that on days when they work the airport they make about 12 runs that average $10 per fare.

One day last week, Saleh told a reporter that he had been driving the streets for an hour and a half before he got his first fare, which brought him $3.60.

“You’re on your luck when you work the streets,” he said. “Sometimes I make $20 a day, other times I make $50 after making enough to pay my lease. Two days ago I only made $17 after making my lease and paying for gas and oil.”

Since the cab industry was deregulated, most cab owners, including Yellow Cab, began leasing their cars to drivers. Saleh pays the cab owner $30 for a 24-hour lease, or $210 a week. Some cars lease for as much as $63.50 a day, and others can be leased at the rate of $20 for 12 hours or $15 for six.

Nay calls the leasing system a “modern-day form of peonage.”

“The cab owner gets his fee every day, whether the guy (driver) gets a passenger or not. It’s sad that people (drivers) have to be on that kind of a subsistence level,” Nay said.

Hammond said, “The only way a lease driver can make a living today is by working 14 to 18 hours a day. . . . If he’s not working the airport he’ll start out in the early morning, get the little rush from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.; go home, take a nap and come back at 3 p.m. and work till 10 p.m. Then he’ll go to a restaurant, get something to eat, and work from midnight till 2 a.m.

“I know drivers who sleep in their cabs. The airport has only two or three arrivals from midnight until 6 a.m. But if you go out there at 3 a.m. you’ll find 15 or 20 cabbies parked to get in line and to sleep, waiting for the 8 a.m. flights. The cabs are their homes.”

There continue to be some complaints about cabdrivers. Aside from the traditional problems with “longhauling,” i.e., padding the fare by taking a longer route, and drivers who solicit customers for prostitutes, Hammond said that nowadays some drivers are engaged in other activities to make a living.

“Some guys are running dope, and I had a driver mug a blind passenger the other day. It’s rotten because nowadays you have to be a pirate to make a living,” Hammond said. “You no longer find elderly drivers who used to drive cabs in order to supplement their Social Security. I mean, for everyone’s well-being it’s imperative that the city find a way of cutting down on the number of cabs. You’ve got 900 cabs doing a job that 300 used to do.”

Lupro and police officials say longhauling, drugs and prostitution are problems that have always plagued the cab industry and that the problems do not appear to be any worse today despite the greater number of cabs in the city.

The San Diego Police Department has a transit unit that conducts safety checks on the cars and investigates passenger complaints against the drivers and cab companies. Recently, the unit has been investigating complaints from the military that some drivers are charging $50 to transport a carload of servicemen from the Naval Training Center to the airport. Normally, the fare is $4 or $5, regardless of the number of passengers in the cab.

Lupro said that the city has no plans to drastically reduce the number of cabs working in San Diego. If there is a solution, she said, city officials have not found it. In part, Lupro said that the cab owners have themselves to blame, because many of them supported deregulation after a lengthy and bitter strike against Yellow Cab in the 1970s.

Before the industry was deregulated, the city dictated cab fares and, aside from a few independent companies, Yellow Cab was the dominant taxi company in San Diego. Yellow owned 280 of the 410 permits authorized in 1979. After deregulation, as many as 600 cabs were given airport permits, but a lottery in 1983 reduced that number to 450. Airport officials decided on the lottery and the odd/even system to reduce the congestion caused by long lines of cabs that competed for the 60 available spaces.

But airport officials said that there might be a change at the airport as early as this summer that will drastically reduce the number of cabs working there. Ideally, Nay said, he would like to see 150 cabs working at the airport on any given day. He said the 225 cabs at the airport every day contribute to the traffic congestion.

“Actually, we thought that even 150 cabs is too much, but I don’t think we can convince the drivers of that,” Nay said.

Some of the changes being considered at the airport include:

- Modifying the odd/even system by allowing drivers to work at the airport every third day, instead of every other day.

- Granting an exclusive franchise to one or two cab companies.

- Instituting a new lottery to give other drivers an opportunity to work the airport.

However, Nay said that there are problems with these proposals and others that have been considered.

“There’s a lot of merit to granting an exclusive franchise to one or two companies, but there’s also a lot of political detriment. It would look like you’re favoring the big guy (Yellow Cab). And I’m sure that some would argue that we are favoring a monopoly, even if we extended it to two companies,” Nay said.

And Nay sees problems with the proposal to institute a new lottery in order to extend the airport privilege to other drivers.

“What you have now is a group of anointed people who have owned airport medallions for three years,” he said. “These are the people who were picked in the original lottery. . . . You could have another lottery, but when you pick by lottery you’re being fair to the drivers but not to the public. In effect, you would be picking people with no demonstrated ability to work the airport over people who have proved they deserve to be picked.”

By “people with no demonstrated ability” Nay said he was referring to “immigrants and non-immigrants” who do not know the area and who have trouble with English.

As expected, the Port District’s proposals have not been widely accepted by the drivers and cab owners.

“If they go the route of an exclusive franchise, you can bet that a lot of independents are going to be hurt. The airport would probably give the franchise to Yellow Cab simply because it’s the biggest company in the city. As it is, Yellow already has 202 of the 450 airport medallions,” said Mike Spadacini, president of and a driver for Orange Cab. “If you close the airport to the independents, you might as well put them out of business altogether.”

Saleh expressed the same concerns:

“The only thing that keeps me above water now is being able to work the airport every other day. . . . People, they tip good at the airport. If they change it so I can only go to the airport every third day, it would be impossible for me to make a living. If it is hard for me without a family, think about those drivers who have a wife and children. How are they going to survive?”

Bill Hilton, Yellow Cab vice president, agrees with Nay that the number of cabs should be reduced. But Hilton believes that Nay’s suggestion of 150 cabs is still too high, and he argues for 125. Hilton said he is confident that Yellow Cab will benefit from whatever change airport officials make.

“As the biggest company in the city, we would certainly have to be considered among the top candidates if the airport decides on an exclusive franchise. . . . And I would tend to favor a system of allowing cabs to work the airport every third day. It would just about solve the problem and put a little order into the system,” Hilton said.