The city of Los Angeles has failed to properly regulate its taxi franchises, effectively abandoning cabdrivers to a life of excessively long hours, poor pay and health troubles, according to a study to be released today by UCLA researchers.
The report, called "Driving Poor" and written by law professor Gary Blasi and urban planning professor Jacqueline Leavitt, paints a bleak picture of the lives of the city's roughly 5,000 taxi drivers.
The typical driver makes $8.39 an hour -- less than the city-mandated "living wage" -- and 61% have no health insurance, according to a survey of 302 drivers conducted as part of the study. On average, they drive 72 hours a week and show signs of extreme stress and chronic back and leg injuries, the study found.
The report also found that drivers lack the protection of wage, hour and workers' compensation laws; many own their cabs but can lose them at any time; and they retain little control over their working lives, even being told by the city what they can wear.
The study describes a co-op ownership system gone bad -- one in which drivers have been increasingly forced to spend heavily for services provided by those who run or contract with the co-ops. The project was launched last spring after drivers began complaining to city officials about their working conditions.
"My assumption going into the report was that taxi drivers were reasonably successful small-business people," said Blasi, the coauthor. "Instead, they are something like sharecroppers on wheels, working incredibly long hours for very little money."
The report concludes that although city officials devote considerable energy to policing the customer service and habits of drivers, they have ignored their duty to protect drivers. The city also has failed to combat illegal "bandit" cabs that compete with the 2,303 legal taxis and has set fares that do not reflect current gas costs, the researchers assert.
The study follows the release of city data Friday showing that drivers cheated passengers 50% of the time in a sting operation involving 30 taxi trips -- data labeled misleading by some drivers and taxi company administrators. The UCLA research suggests that drivers are driven to cheat by rules that limit their earning power, quoting an unnamed city official as saying, "Of course they are rigging meters. What do you expect them to do with gas prices this high?"
