New York.

Never mind nickel-and-diming. The city is now stooping to nickel-and-pennying.

This week, The Post reported how the city’s taxi drivers are now being charged a new tax of 6 cents — i.e., a nickel and a penny — per ride. The hidden add-on is supposed to go toward programs that help cabbies figure out ObamaCare (good luck with that one) and for disability insurance “over and above” what medallion owners must already provide.

Six cents a ride may not sound like much. But for drivers who handle more than 100 fares a week (many get more), it adds up to a new $300-plus annual tax.

Cab drivers are right to be livid, particularly given that some of them thought the money would be used to pay for actual health insurance — not instructions on how to buy it.

But cab riders should also be fuming, because the ObamaCare surcharge was OK’d by the city last year as part of a fare increase that New Yorkers pay each time they get into a cab.

It’s government-creep in action: Riders foot the tab for a fare hike that includes a hidden tax to pay for government-mandated services to help drivers figure out a law that’s too complicated for them to understand but nonetheless requires them to buy insurance they don’t necessarily want or need.

And the president wonders why ObamaCare remains unpopular?
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West Midlands

A two-year-old girl needed hospital treatment after suffering a serious head injury when a brick was thrown through a taxi window.

The child and her mother were in a cab at around 9.30pm in Wednesbury, the West Midlands, when there was a loud smash.

The little girl began to cry and her 26-year-old mother discovered she had suffered a deep gash to the back of her head and was bleeding heavily.

The taxi driver pulled over and discovered part of a house brick had been through through the rear window which had shattered.

The child was taken to Birmingham Children’s Hospital where she needed stitches and was kept in for observation.

The attack happened on Tuesday, October 8.

Detective Constable Debbie Hickinbottom said: "Fortunately the child was not permanently harmed and she has made a speedy recovery. However the incident has left her mother deeply shaken.

"We are checking local buildings for CCTV, but meanwhile we are hoping that a member of the public may have witnessed something which will lead us to the culprit."
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Dudley

A TAXI crackdown between police and Dudley Council is being planned in the run-up to Christmas to improve customer safety.

Council licensing enforcement officers and cops will be hitting the streets on covert operations to ensure hackney carriage and private hire vehicle drivers are operating within the rules of their licences.

The planned pre-Christmas operations follow a successful operation held on October 11 in the Stourbridge and Lye areas where around 20 vehicles were checked.

The checks ensure private hire drivers are only taking pre-booked customers and not collecting people who hail them down without making a reservation.

Hackney carriages will also be checked to ensure they are running their meters appropriately from the start of all journeys.

In the October operation all eight hackney carriages checked used their meter appropriately.

Only one of 12 private hire vehicles inspected collected passengers without a reservation - the driver of which is currently the subject of an investigation before any action is taken by the authority.

Councillor Richard Body, chairman of the taxis committee, said: “The hugely successful operation this month showed the vast majority of taxi drivers are obeying the rules of their licence which is very pleasing and reassuring for customers. “We will be looking to carry out similar operations in the run-up to the busy Christmas period to help maintain these high standards and enhance the safety of the public.”
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A TORBAY taxi driver appeared in court on Friday charged with sexually assaulting two female passengers.
Brian Timms, 61, of Arden Drive in Torquay, is accused of sexually assaulting two women in Paignton.

Timms was not required to enter a plea during the short hearing before Judge Erik Salomonsen at Exeter Crown Court.
A plea hearing will take place at the same court on January 31.


A provisional trial date was set for July 7 next year.
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New York (2)

Hail a yellow cab in New York City today, and you could be stepping into a dog's breakfast of vehicles, ranging from a cavernous Toyota (TM) Sienna minivan to a claustrophobic Ford Escape crossover. After climbing into the rear seat, you may find yourself nostalgic for a yellow Crown Victoria, an obsolete sedan that had been in production for 20 years when Ford (F, Fortune 500) discontinued it in 2011. But chances are you won't be sliding your fanny into very many Nissan NV200s, the one-time "taxi of tomorrow" that now has only a slim chance of becoming a taxi of today.

The Nissan cab, which was supposed to replace nearly all of the 16 different models currently certified as New York City taxi-worthy, found itself detoured by a combination of technical shortcomings, city hall bumbling, and plain old political hardball. For Nissan, the failure of the NV200 to take over the entire fleet represents a financial loss of $50 million, a missed marketing opportunity, and a very public embarrassment.

What became the plan's knockout punch was thrown in October when a state Supreme Court judge made a third adverse ruling preventing the city from going ahead with the plan. The Bloomberg Administration said it planned an immediate appeal, but with Mayor Bloomberg due to leave office on Dec. 31, little time is left to go forward, and neither of the two candidates expected to succeed him in 2014 favors the project.

Opposition was vocal. "The so-called Taxi of Tomorrow is a misnomer," Ethan Gerber, executive director of the Greater New York Taxi Association, which represents fleet owners, told Capital New York. "There is nothing 'tomorrow' about it. Let's call it Taxi of Yesterday. It is not accessible. It is not clean-air. It is a non-accessible, non-hybrid, non-clean air, old-fashioned combustion engine."


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