Before the accident that killed an 86-year-old woman crossing Sheridan Road, cabdriver Mohammed Ahmed had been cited nine times by Chicago police, including once when his taxi allegedly crashed into the back of an unmarked police car. In eight of those cases, the charges were dismissed. (The fatal crash is still pending.)
Since 2008, cabbie Matthias Opke has been stopped and cited 18 times, including one crash that sent a pedestrian flying, according to police. In 16 of those cases, the charges were dismissed.
Driver Maxwell Gabriel saw charges dismissed from 16 of 23 stops — a total of 34 tickets since 2008. In one case, he allegedly lost control of his cab and hit a light pole, injuring his passenger. That one was dismissed. In a case that’s still pending, he’s accused of hitting a woman on Michigan Avenue.
All three are still licensed to drive taxis in the city.
They’re among the worst repeat offenders identified in a Tribune report that raised alarming questions about the city’s system for getting dangerous cabdrivers off the road.
The inescapable conclusion is that taxi drivers behave like stereotypical road menaces because there are few consequences.
In August, a city study of vehicle-pedestrian accidents found that more than 1 in 4 downtown crashes involved cabdrivers. This should come as no surprise to anyone who’s risked life and limb for a Starbucks fix.
Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein gave this blunt assessment of the city’s findings: “It isn’t just a few bad apples. The overwhelming number of taxi drivers, unfortunately, speed on a regular basis and set a pretty bad example for everybody else. They hit the gas at every green light and slam on the brakes at every red light a block later.”
Two pedestrians were struck and killed by cabs this past summer — one in a crosswalk and one on a sidewalk.
The city has recently tightened its policy: Three convictions for traffic violations within a year has long been grounds for revoking a license; now, it’s automatic. But that will do little to protect the public as long as the charges are routinely dismissed.
In the Tribune’s sample of 28 heavily ticketed cabbies, citations from two out of every three stops were dismissed. Many of those stops involved multiple tickets. Some of them stemmed from crashes with other vehicles or pedestrians.
Why do cabbies get so many free passes? It’s hard to tell from the court documents, which include little elaboration. About one-third of them are marked dismissed for “want of prosecution,” which typically means witnesses or police didn’t show up in court. Others are coded “dismissed,” “non-suit” or “stricken.” The cases are usually part of the giant cattle call at the Daley Center courtrooms; some hearings are literally over in seconds.
A spokesman for the city’s Law Department, which prosecutes most of the tickets, said the city makes a good-faith effort to make sure witnesses appear in court. The police union president told a reporter that cops take traffic court seriously, but that it’s “the lowest on the hierarchy for appearance.” So it’s a priority unless it isn’t, we suppose. That’s not reassuring.
What’s needed is for police and the Law Department to double down on cases involving taxis. Show up. Crack down. Past citations, even if they were dismissed, should be taken into account. The city’s commitment to yank a license after three convictions won’t have much effect as long as those tickets are so easy to beat.
