Taxi Drivers

A Bangladeshi immigrant paid a record $360,000 at a city auction for a New York taxi medallion, which is required by the city to own a taxicab. Most cabdrivers in the city work for taxi fleets or lease time from a medallion owner. Mohammed Shah, 44, mortgaged his house in the New York borough of Queens to help finance the purchase Monday of one of 116 new taxi medallions sold to the highest bidders. The price of an owner-driver medallion rose almost $50,000 from last year.

Mistakes are the portals of discovery. At least that's what James Joyce, one of Ireland's most famous writers - and a notorious drinker - once said. The phrase rings particularly true on St. Patrick's Day, the saucy Irish holiday that is marked by an epic consumption of alcohol and plenty of corned beef and cabbage. To honor Joyce, we make the annual mistake of drinking too much and discover that we wake up feeling green. Here are some of our favorite places to make those mistakes and many others this Sunday - framed by the back of a cab, of course.

Esam Yousif hovered by his freshly painted taxi, holding the decals that would christen it taxi No. 654. Once the stickers were affixed and his radio and meter installed, he would be ready to hit the road. For Yousif, 39, and more than 200 other veteran cab drivers, this month marked a new start in their careers -- as members of a taxi cooperative launched after a four-year fight to increase competition in Colorado's tightly controlled taxi market.

BEIJING -- Thousands in the northeastern city of Changchun mourned during a candlelight vigil Tuesday night for a 2-month-old boy who officials say was strangled to death by a carjacker. Xu Haobo was sleeping in the backseat of his parent's SUV early Monday morning when his father stopped for a few minutes to turn on the heat in a store the family owned, authorities said. "He left his kid in the car with the heat on, and he didn't take the keys," a bystander at the scene in Changchun later told TV reporters.

About 13,000 Seoul taxi drivers went on strike Friday after last-ditch talks with vehicle owners' representatives failed. The strike, over demands for better pay and working conditions, halted about 30% of the capital's 41,000 taxis, Labor Ministry officials said.

Another taxicab driver has been murdered ("Leads Sought in Slaying of Cabdriver," June 15). Los Angeles taxicab passengers, please do not take offense at your driver's safety precautions; his is a dangerous job. (I am a driver for Bell Cab.) Abraham Sutherland Los Angeles

Woe is the taxi driver in China. The roads are clogged with about 40,000 new cars a day, the price of gasoline has doubled in the last five years, and passenger fares have barely budged even though everything else in the country is getting more expensive. Fed up with their shrinking profit margins, 1,500 cabbies in the eastern city of Hangzhou went on strike this month demanding higher fares. "Ten years ago, taxi drivers belonged to the high-income group. Now we have become part of the low-income group," a Hangzhou cab driver told the Oriental Daily, explaining how his pay after expenses had dropped from about $730 a month six years ago to $470 today.

Fourteen taxi drivers are fighting to share in a $90-million lottery ticket, contending they were part of a pool that bought the ticket. The cabbies' attorney concedes they didn't contribute to the pool for last week's drawing, but they have regularly paid into the kitty since the lottery pool was formed last month.

A taxi driver in the San Gabriel Valley community of East Valinda was found shot dead in his cab Monday afternoon, Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies said. Deputies responded to a call of shots fired in the 17600 block of Gemini Street just north of the city of Industry about 3:30 p.m. When they arrived, they found the victim slumped over the steering wheel of his cab, the engine running, said Deputy Cruz Solis.

A taxi cab driver was shot in the back of the head by a robber early Monday, authorities said. The driver, whose name was not released, was in critical condition at UCLA Medical Center, authorities said. The assailant took an unknown amount of money, authorities said. California Highway Patrol responded to a report that a taxi had crashed into a pole near Slauson and Corning avenues about 12:30 a.m., Sgt. Michael Holland said.

The brother of a taxi driver killed in a crash on the Las Vegas Strip last month said he wants the suspect in the case punished - and stiffer gun control to keep weapons out of the hands of people with criminal pasts. Michael Boldon, 62, died Feb. 21 after suspect Ammar Harris, a self-described pimp, allegedly shot and killed Oakland rapper Kenneth Cherry Jr. after an altercation at the Aria Casino. Cherry's Maserati crashed into a taxicab, which exploded in flames, killing Boldon and a passenger, Sandra Sutton-Wasmund, according to prosecutors.

LAS VEGAS -- The Strip's most notable intersection was back in business as police continued their manhunt for a black Range Rover whose occupants opened fire on a Maserati early Thursday, causing a fiery crash that left three people dead, including an aspiring rapper. Authorities on Friday were conducting a four-state search for the occupants of the luxury SUV, who police said opened fire on the Maserati about 4:20 a.m. Thursday following a verbal altercation at a valet stand outside the Aria resort and hotel.

There may be people in L.A. who would find Ruby Wax's one-woman show, "Ruby Wax: Out of Her Mind," now at the Broad Stage's Edye Second Space, inaccessible. For example, those emotionally stable, positive thinkers who have never had a moment's self-doubt, much less stayed in bed for days at a stretch or considered walking into traffic. Or the no-nonsense type who would advise a depressed friend to "perk up. " But if L.A. contains such people -- and a survey of drivers at peak traffic hours might not turn up many -- I don't want to meet them.

JERUSALEM - Israel is among the most security-conscious nations on Earth. F-16 warplanes scream overhead. Antimissile systems become national heroes. The spy agency Mossad enjoys near legendary status. So if, in the words of English writer Samuel Johnson, patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, what better way to cover up one's misdeeds than by posing as a secret agent? Israel has been captivated by a certain Shimon Cooper, 51, a taxi driver who is accused of using such a ruse to kill his first and third wives, and vanish for days with his lover, using "secret missions" and "overseas assassinations" as a cover.

BEIJING - Getting around China's congested capital requires a certain calculus: In choosing a means of transportation, you must weigh factors like rush-hour traffic, precipitation and how long you can stand being pressed up against a stranger's armpit. But no one warned me about figuring in billy club-wielding attackers. It was a Thursday, and an angry, swirling wind was blowing down Chaowai South Street as I emerged from the Starbucks at the sleek U-Town Mall. The scent of an approaching storm told me I needed to figure out how to get home - fast.

LONDON -- It's time again. The every-four-year itch needs scratching. London will have its Olympics, and the tizzy is at high pitch. The Olympic rings hang proudly under the Tower Bridge and over the Thames River. The airports are flooded with arrivals, and with people in official London Olympic orange and purple, slobbering over those arrivals. "Can I help you, sir? Is there anything you need?" That's a bit jarring. This is London, a huge city that understandably operates in the tone and temperament of Donald Trump.

People who travel across town in taxis may still have an occasional hair-raising ride, but under a new policy they can be assured that the reason is not that the driver is impaired by drink or drugs. By September, all 81 drivers who work for the city's nine cab companies will have to prove that they have passed a drug test within the past year, said Police Chief Richard M. Tefank, who drafted the policy earlier this month.

The King could be your cabbie under Seattle's new taxi driver dress code. The City Council voted to approve legislation that would allow drivers to sport rhinestone capes, blue suede shoes or whatever other appropriate costume they wish. Cab driver Dave Groh's case prompted the change to the city's 1997 taxi dress code. Adopting an Elvis look after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in hopes of bringing some levity to the city, Groh in turn drew the ire of inspectors.

LONDON - Like most taxi drivers here, the one negotiating us through the heavy traffic along the Strand had plenty to say. But instead of the usual taxi driver topics of politics or bad drivers, the subject uppermost on his mind was the Olympics and how he was looking forward to missing them. "Me and the missus are going away," he volunteered. "We've booked a holiday in Majorca for some sun and to get away from London. A lot of my mates are doing the same. " The reason, he said, was that he and his fellow drivers expect the traffic situation to be intolerable during the Olympics, mainly because London Mayor Boris Johnson and the London Organizing Committee have decreed that several of the city's main thoroughfares will be closed to all vehicles except VIP transport.

BEIJING — The Warren Buffett-backed Chinese carmaker BYD Co. is defending the safety of its e6 electric car after the vehicle was involved in a fiery collision that killed three people and raised fresh concerns about one of China's most ambitious companies. BYD, which was considered one of China's most promising brands just a few years ago, said Saturday's crash in the southern city of Shenzhen occurred when a drunk driver in a Nissan GT-R coupe, speeding at 112 mph, slammed into an e6 taxi, killing the driver and two passengers.