TLC statistics are taking honest New York City cabbies for a ride

BY DAN ACKMAN AND BHAIRAVI DESAI
Wednesday, March 24th 2010, 4:00 AM

News that New York City taxi drivers cheated passengers of some $8.3 million was shocking, especially to those familiar with the industry. It was, in fact, too shocking to be believed.

According to a press release hurried out late Friday afternoon by the Taxi and Limousine Commission, the agency had suddenly "discovered" 1,872,078 trips where passengers were illegally charged an excessive rate.

By the following Monday, the TLC was moving in reverse, with its chairman, Matthew Daus, saying new data shows "a very large number" of drivers were mistakenly implicated in the scam. The so-called scam, as we now know, was that passengers were charged a suburban-rate double fare for rides in the city. As it turns out, the drivers did hit the wrong fare button. But they did so accidentally at the end of the rides—which means no passengers were overcharged.