It's Christmas time again and I think I would be remiss if I didn't re-post the Christmas Story. I just read it again myself and it brings back a lot of memories, and helps to remind me of what's really important. I'm leaving for home tomorrow, going back for another round of Secret Santa craziness and I can't wait to see what this year has in store for my family. If any tears are shed this time around, I'll be sure to let you know. It's been an interesting year for me, both in my personal life and in the cab and I am very grateful to have you guys to read about it. Thanks for your support as always and we'll see ya in 2011.
Christmas Story
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and a Happy New Year to you all.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Remember to Call
I don't remember what the gentlemen and I were discussing. I can't remember where we were going either, someplace over by Flamingo and Paradise. Maybe the La Quinta. Now that I think about it, I don't even remember where I picked the guy up. Maybe it was Caesars. What I do recall was us being the only car sitting at a red light on Flamingo at Howard Hughes, directly in front of the Tuscany. It was late and my cab was the only car around, like in the movies. That was when I noticed a very large red truck coming from behind us in my rear view mirror. The numerous blinding lights mounted to its front grill made it impossible to tell for sure but it appeared to be approaching at an incredibly fast rate of speed. When you see this scene in the movies you think to yourself, this truck is going to plow right into us, but it’s ok because I will hit the gas in time. I’ll floor it right away, burn through the red light, manage to avoid the oncoming crossing traffic and pick up just enough speed so we only get a bumper tap from the truck, which does nothing but help us along our merry way. But that's not real life, at least not tonight it wasn’t. In real life you see the emblem coming right at you in the rear view in 3D and your body is frozen as you stare at the truck, now in slow motion as it steams right towards you. A split second seems like minutes but even in the slow motion affair you are helpless. This was a tall truck, with big tires and it's name was Ford. I'm certain the stock model came equipped with a braking system, but we'll never know if they were functioning because the bitch at the helm never even applied them. Three drunk girls with Papi's jacked up F-250 decided to drive home and in the process plowed into a motionless cab at better than 40 miles an hour.
The collision was the loudest thing I’d ever heard. The two vehicles exploded as metal was torn like aluminum foil and glass from multiple windows shattered, littering the entire intersection. My body flailed around uncontrollably from the force of the impact, only succumbed by my safety belt. Once the cab finally rolled to a stop it seemed like a dream. I wasn’t in my body but more a daze of ignorance. My thoughts seemed to take forever to collect themselves but when they came around I noticed that I still had all of my fingers and toes. I was alright, or so I thought. Once I turned around however, I quickly realized that my passenger was not nearly as lucky as I was. He took that truck right in his backside and since there was no screeching of the tires, there was no warning. He probably didn’t even know what was coming. Thankfully, he was conscious and didn’t appear to be bleeding anywhere, but it was clear he was in excruciating pain. My first thought was that his back was broken. His head was planted firmly against the headrest and his body lay ridged against the back seat like he was already strapped to a backboard. It seemed like he was afraid to move, for fear of causing himself more pain I believe. When I tried to talk to him his entire body remained still and he only moved his eyes to address me. I reached for my phone and dialed 911 and told them my location and that we needed Fire & Rescue and Metro immediately. Thankfully the Fire House on Flamingo was less than a mile straight down the road. I tried my best to talk to the man.
“Help is coming right now sir, the Fire House is very close to here they will be here any second,” I said. “Just be still ok, you’re going to be alright.”
“What happened?” was all he could say in between his groans of agony.
“We got rear ended, we’re going to be alright though I promise ok? I can hear the sirens already.”
I picked up my two-way and informed my dispatch of my location and what was going on before getting out of my cab. As the cavalry approached, I motioned to the fire trucks to help insure that they tended to my passenger first.
“Listen friend help is here, they are going to take good care of you ok? Is there somebody I can call for you? Maybe I can tell them where you’re going so they can meet you at the hospital?”
“No,” he said without hesitation, “I don’t want my wife to worry.”
How noble I thought. “Yeah you’re right,” I said, “you call her after you find out you’re ok.”
In the seconds of confusion that followed the collision, I could have sworn that I noticed in my mirror the drivers door of the truck open and close. It was confusing. As Las Vegas F.D.’ finest began to unload and tend to my passenger, I walked over to the truck mostly to assess the situation, but also to see if the girls were alright. As soon as I walked up to the drivers door I could see the multiple empty beer cans scattered across the trucks floorboard.
“Are you guys ok?” I asked.
“We think so,” said the brunette.
“Was there somebody else driving or something?”
“No,” she said, “ I was driving.”
I don’t think it mattered much, they were both drunk by the looks of things.
By the time the police arrived my passenger was already on a stretcher being loaded into the back of the ambulance. Being in such a vulnerable state, I walked over to him and grabbed his hand and apologized.
“I’m real sorry about this sir, you’re going to be alright buddy just take it easy ok?”
Nothing is worse than being in the hospital on your vacation. The medics closed the double doors of the ambulance behind my passenger and were driving off sirens blazing in seconds. I ventured back near my cab where the first cop to the scene seemed to be surveying the damage.
“This is your cab?” he asked me.
“Yes sir.”
“You’re not injured?”
“No sir I think I’m ok.”
“What happened?” he said.
“We got rear-ended. We were in the #2 lane here, first and only car at the red light here and these guys came out of nowhere and plowed right into us,” I said. “I already talked to the girls, there are beer cans all over the inside of that truck.”
The officer game me a stern look, I continued, “There’s something else sir, after the impact I coulda swore that the drivers door opened and shut, I think these girls either switched seats or the one that was driving is no longer here. I don‘t know, I got knocked around pretty good I think.”
“Really?”
“Yeah I’m not sure.”
“I’ll bet you’re right., your mind doesn’t just make stuff up like that. You probably witnessed it you’re just don’t believe you did. Well,” he said in a gasp, “if she’s smart she’ll go right to a bar and start drinking.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I said if she’s smart she’ll go straight to a bar and start drinking. If she fled the scene drunk and we find her at a bar drinking we can’t prove that she was drunk at the time of the accident. We’d have her on the felony hit and run easy, but it’d be difficult to make the DUI stick.” The Officer said. “I’m going to figure out what’s going on, you go over there and stand on the sidewalk off the road ok?”
“Yes sir.”
“You’re sure you’re alright?” he said walking away. “This is a pretty bad one.”
“Yeah.”
The officer got both of the girls out of the truck and made them sit very far apart on the curb so he could interview them separately. The oldest trick in the book. Meanwhile my companies supervisor arrived at the scene along with their insurance adjuster and in short time a Taxicab Authority Officer was on the scene as well. Obviously, the liabilities involved in the cab business are astronomical so naturally my employers take whatever steps they can to try and limit those exposures. You would do the same thing. One of my obligations as a cab driver is to notify my dispatch of any accidents that I may be involved in. And I do mean any. At one time my companies handbook defined an accident as; “If your cab touches anything other than air, you have been involved in an accident.” More recently this language has been amended to be more concise because by this definition, anytime it rains or a bug splatters on my windshield I have been involved in an accident. I only share this definition with you now to help illustrate how serious the companies are about their drivers reporting their “accidents”. Failure to notify dispatch of any accident is grounds for instant termination, even if there is zero damage or if the accident wasn’t your fault. My super, the insurance representative and the T.A. Officer are all here to serve that end in one way shape or form. There will be dozens of photos taken, passengers interviewed, witness statements, driver statements, seat belts tested and even accident reconstruction. Attempts are also made at achieving signatures from those involved who are denying medical attention. That’s right, they will try and make you sign a sheet of paper, a contract essentially, saying that you are ok. These sorts of things are not insurmountable in court I don‘t believe, but the companies sure love to have those documents in hand when people try and sue them later. And it’s not just you, they make me sign it too.
The cop returned, “you’re right” he said, “there was definitely somebody else driving.”
“They told you?” I said.
“Not yet, but they will. I’m just over here letting them pine on it for a minute.”
The insurance adjuster got busy taking pictures and speaking to the girls as well while my supervisor and I began filling out the seemingly endless paperwork that revolves around these incidents. Anything and everything to limit liabilities. The cop returned hassling the girls.
Right around the time my cab was making it’s way onto the flatbed tow-truck now at the scene, another large Ford pick-up pulled alongside the accident and parked. A middle aged Latino couple got out of the truck and the cop wasted no time walking up to the woman and said, “Where you driving this truck ma’am?” to which she nodded. The cop quickly placed handcuffs on the driver and directed her to stand in front of his squad car. Undoubtedly, one of the girls had called the driver and convinced her to come back. She wept while the man, presumably her husband, assured her that he would come and bail her out. The Metro Officer continued with his duties of questioning the driver while the husbands thoughts turned to the pool of antifreeze on the ground and his significantly damaged truck. His anger about his “loss” was verbally apparent which in turn, made me angry.
“Yeah, maybe you should be thinking about the guy who’s at the hospital right now,” I said.
“Who the fuck are you?” the man shot back.
“Oh I’m just the guy your wife almost killed, no big deal. Man that‘s too bad about your truck bro. What a shame.”
“That’s enough,” The TA officer said to me realizing that this was a conversation that wasn’t going to lead anywhere good. No reason for the two of us guys to be around each other anyway. “Go sit in the tow truck, you don‘t need to be out here anymore,” he scolded me.
“Yes Officer.”
I retrieved my drivers license and T.A. permit from the insurance adjuster who had completed notating my information, but my carry on bag and the rest of my belongings where still in the cab, now atop the flatbed. While the tow-truck driver was working to secure my taxi, I climbed up into the smelly cab of the truck and sat in the well of silence. I thought about what had just happened, and that it just as easily could have been me at the E.R. right now. It just as easily could have been a slightly different kind of impact that resulted in something much worse. Standing there looking at the wreck for that time I was amazed the truck didn’t run up over top of us. It was no Big Foot V, but it was certainly modified with oversized tires. What if that happened? I don’t know and I suppose it’s best not to think about it. But in thinking about these things, and about how my passenger handled the situation, I realized that I had the same feeling about things that he did. Should I call my loved ones? Should I call the ones who care about me and tell them that their worst fears about my job almost came true? Of course you’d like to share it with somebody, but what does it really serve? Certainly at that moment, over the phone, it only serves to make people worry. You tell them only after they can see that you’re ok. My passenger knew that. I guess I did too.
“You ready to go?” The tow-truck driver said climbing in the drivers seat.
“Yeah let’s get out of here.”
“So are they going to put you in another cab and make you go back out?” he said making a U-turn to head west on Flamingo to head back to my company’s yard.
“Fuck no, I’m going home.”
We drove past the accident scene on our way back westbound on Flamingo. As we passed by, the young woman stared at me from the backseat of the police cruiser. I hoped that it was a look of empathy, but I have little doubt it was the look of self pity. Ten minutes later we were back at the yard. I opened the door to climb down from the tow-truck and the instant I made it on my feet again was when it hit me. My body felt like I had just played in two consecutive football games, like my entire body was in a knot that could never work itself out. My back was stiff, my neck was stiff, my knees hurt too for some reason. Perhaps my 6’3 frame forced my legs into the dash during the impact. I don’t remember. Regardless, it seemed obvious that in becoming aware of the impending impact my body tensed as a result of the fear, which was now playing a major roll in my stiffness. I felt like an 80 year old man. It took an unusual amount of concentration for me to be able to finish my required shift paperwork, count out my money and drop it in the company safe. My struggles were made worse by the 3 different cab drivers who made a point to come up to me, knowing that I had just been in an accident, to offer me the business cards of their favorite attorneys. Naturally those drivers would have received a nice kick back from the lawyer if I chose to procure their services. The strongest argument I heard regarding why I should “sue the bitch” was the simple fact that, had the situation been reversed and it had been me who had rear ended the 3 girls, there is no doubt that all three of them would be suing me, and my company as well. There is no question that this is true. This theory has been expressed, and proven in these pages previously.
You may recall a story I told some time ago about my worst at fault accident that I was involved in. I had dropped off a passenger at a UPS store who was a total bitch and as it turned out, she had no money to pay me. I was so steamed pulling out of the driveway, sans payment, that I collided with a car that was traveling in the middle turn lane or suicide lane as some call it. Due to the gridlock of cars in the two thru lanes to my left, coupled with my emotional state, I simply did not see the oncoming vehicle who, had he been obeying the rules of the road, would have never been there in the first place. But he was there and I did not yield and my front end ultimately scraped his entire passenger side of his car as he flew by me. Had I been 6ft further ahead at that exact moment, I would have gotten it right in my drivers door. Had I been 6 inches further back, I would have missed him entirely. I didn’t get T-boned thankfully but I did make substantial contact with his car as he crossed in front of me. After the impact both of us quickly exited our vehicles, for entirely different reasons mind you. I began walking towards him and asked, “Are you ok?”. The man’s actual response to the question, as well as the very nature of it, is something that I will always remember. The man looked at me, looked over at my taxi, then looked back at me and while shrugging his shoulders said simply, “I don’t know.” I knew how it was going to go down as soon as he said that and sure enough a month later I was served papers informing me of the pending lawsuit against both myself and my employer. I was also not surprised when I noticed who was representing the guy was none other than the “Heavy Hitter” himself. Due to the incessant moronic commercials, Las Vegas locals know the heavy hitter to not only be the biggest ambulance chaser in town, but probably the biggest douche as well.
As it turned out, that lawsuit was dropped and as such I have no judgments against me. I would venture that my accident mate was not totally forthright during his consultations with his heavy hitting attorney and when certain facts came to light later on-particularly that the Metro officer at the scene determined that both parties were at fault and cited both of us, as well as the fact that we had video documentation of the accident itself, it became clear to the Heavy Hitter that he had a shit case on his hands and it was quickly disposed of.
All lawsuit for profit business aside, and even though I was initially convinced that I was fine, it was clear that I was going to need some medical attention after all. Realizing that it would be unwise as well as unnecessary to pay for my own medical treatment in this situation, I sought representation the following day. However I did not choose one of the lawyers my fellow cabbies were pushing me towards but rather I chose a friend of my girlfriend’s whom she used to work for. Somebody I could trust. At the time I couldn’t say I was too thrilled at the idea of being “that guy”, however in hindsight it was the right move because I was off to the M.D. and a Chiropractor later that afternoon. My attorney could handle all of the business so I could simply focus on getting better.
My M.D. was concerned about my headaches, which I never get, but I passed all of the concussion tests with flying colors and after a brief once-over, the only thing keeping me from a clean bill of health was my severe stiffness so off to the Chiropractor I went. Over the course of the next two weeks I visited the Chiropractor 7 times. During each visit I was adjusted, then spent equal time on some electro shock therapy, a roller bed, and some light rehab equipment. Boy did I love that roller bed. Throughout that time I saw steady improvement everyday and even though my Dr. insisted that I needed at least another week of treatment, I never went back after 7 visits. I was right as rain.
Even though I had two weeks of treatment I was back to work after only one. In the months that followed my attorney saw to my lawsuit which he informed me was getting increasingly complicated as a result of the fact that the defendant was being pursued by 3 different parties all of which with legitimate complaints. My passenger, my employer and I all sought compensation and naturally the defendant didn’t have a large enough policy to appease us all. To this day, I have no idea what came of my passenger. I sure hope that he ended up alright. Regardless of his outcome I’m sure he racked up some hefty medical bills along the way. For my employer’s part, they had a totaled sedan on their hands and there is little doubt they pursued lack of use compensation in addition to the actual value of their vehicle. As for me, I had a relatively small claim the end result of which netted me just enough to cover my medical bills and my attorney’s end, with barely enough left over to compensate me for my lost time working. But that was ok, I wasn’t seeking a big payday. I was seeking my health and reasonable compensation for my time and I think I received those things. Besides, I’m sure my passengers attorney, and the team of them that my company employs had no problems sticking it to the bitch without my help.
In the end, these sort of things are part of being a cab driver I suppose. No different than the pukers and the posers, the bad tippers and the prostitutes, dealing with the drunk drivers comes with the territory. This is after all Las Vegas, home of the bars that never close. I certainly would not choose that it be this way, that even today the number of drunk drivers on the road is still appalling. If nothing else I should feel fortunate that I made it six years without an accident that harmed me. That’s a pretty good run I think and a testament to my quality driving. And I should be thankful that even though this situation was far from ideal, I did make it out alive and without a scratch. I guess now I can call Mom and tell her.
The collision was the loudest thing I’d ever heard. The two vehicles exploded as metal was torn like aluminum foil and glass from multiple windows shattered, littering the entire intersection. My body flailed around uncontrollably from the force of the impact, only succumbed by my safety belt. Once the cab finally rolled to a stop it seemed like a dream. I wasn’t in my body but more a daze of ignorance. My thoughts seemed to take forever to collect themselves but when they came around I noticed that I still had all of my fingers and toes. I was alright, or so I thought. Once I turned around however, I quickly realized that my passenger was not nearly as lucky as I was. He took that truck right in his backside and since there was no screeching of the tires, there was no warning. He probably didn’t even know what was coming. Thankfully, he was conscious and didn’t appear to be bleeding anywhere, but it was clear he was in excruciating pain. My first thought was that his back was broken. His head was planted firmly against the headrest and his body lay ridged against the back seat like he was already strapped to a backboard. It seemed like he was afraid to move, for fear of causing himself more pain I believe. When I tried to talk to him his entire body remained still and he only moved his eyes to address me. I reached for my phone and dialed 911 and told them my location and that we needed Fire & Rescue and Metro immediately. Thankfully the Fire House on Flamingo was less than a mile straight down the road. I tried my best to talk to the man.
“Help is coming right now sir, the Fire House is very close to here they will be here any second,” I said. “Just be still ok, you’re going to be alright.”
“What happened?” was all he could say in between his groans of agony.
“We got rear ended, we’re going to be alright though I promise ok? I can hear the sirens already.”
I picked up my two-way and informed my dispatch of my location and what was going on before getting out of my cab. As the cavalry approached, I motioned to the fire trucks to help insure that they tended to my passenger first.
“Listen friend help is here, they are going to take good care of you ok? Is there somebody I can call for you? Maybe I can tell them where you’re going so they can meet you at the hospital?”
“No,” he said without hesitation, “I don’t want my wife to worry.”
How noble I thought. “Yeah you’re right,” I said, “you call her after you find out you’re ok.”
In the seconds of confusion that followed the collision, I could have sworn that I noticed in my mirror the drivers door of the truck open and close. It was confusing. As Las Vegas F.D.’ finest began to unload and tend to my passenger, I walked over to the truck mostly to assess the situation, but also to see if the girls were alright. As soon as I walked up to the drivers door I could see the multiple empty beer cans scattered across the trucks floorboard.
“Are you guys ok?” I asked.
“We think so,” said the brunette.
“Was there somebody else driving or something?”
“No,” she said, “ I was driving.”
I don’t think it mattered much, they were both drunk by the looks of things.
By the time the police arrived my passenger was already on a stretcher being loaded into the back of the ambulance. Being in such a vulnerable state, I walked over to him and grabbed his hand and apologized.
“I’m real sorry about this sir, you’re going to be alright buddy just take it easy ok?”
Nothing is worse than being in the hospital on your vacation. The medics closed the double doors of the ambulance behind my passenger and were driving off sirens blazing in seconds. I ventured back near my cab where the first cop to the scene seemed to be surveying the damage.
“This is your cab?” he asked me.
“Yes sir.”
“You’re not injured?”
“No sir I think I’m ok.”
“What happened?” he said.
“We got rear-ended. We were in the #2 lane here, first and only car at the red light here and these guys came out of nowhere and plowed right into us,” I said. “I already talked to the girls, there are beer cans all over the inside of that truck.”
The officer game me a stern look, I continued, “There’s something else sir, after the impact I coulda swore that the drivers door opened and shut, I think these girls either switched seats or the one that was driving is no longer here. I don‘t know, I got knocked around pretty good I think.”
“Really?”
“Yeah I’m not sure.”
“I’ll bet you’re right., your mind doesn’t just make stuff up like that. You probably witnessed it you’re just don’t believe you did. Well,” he said in a gasp, “if she’s smart she’ll go right to a bar and start drinking.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I said if she’s smart she’ll go straight to a bar and start drinking. If she fled the scene drunk and we find her at a bar drinking we can’t prove that she was drunk at the time of the accident. We’d have her on the felony hit and run easy, but it’d be difficult to make the DUI stick.” The Officer said. “I’m going to figure out what’s going on, you go over there and stand on the sidewalk off the road ok?”
“Yes sir.”
“You’re sure you’re alright?” he said walking away. “This is a pretty bad one.”
“Yeah.”
The officer got both of the girls out of the truck and made them sit very far apart on the curb so he could interview them separately. The oldest trick in the book. Meanwhile my companies supervisor arrived at the scene along with their insurance adjuster and in short time a Taxicab Authority Officer was on the scene as well. Obviously, the liabilities involved in the cab business are astronomical so naturally my employers take whatever steps they can to try and limit those exposures. You would do the same thing. One of my obligations as a cab driver is to notify my dispatch of any accidents that I may be involved in. And I do mean any. At one time my companies handbook defined an accident as; “If your cab touches anything other than air, you have been involved in an accident.” More recently this language has been amended to be more concise because by this definition, anytime it rains or a bug splatters on my windshield I have been involved in an accident. I only share this definition with you now to help illustrate how serious the companies are about their drivers reporting their “accidents”. Failure to notify dispatch of any accident is grounds for instant termination, even if there is zero damage or if the accident wasn’t your fault. My super, the insurance representative and the T.A. Officer are all here to serve that end in one way shape or form. There will be dozens of photos taken, passengers interviewed, witness statements, driver statements, seat belts tested and even accident reconstruction. Attempts are also made at achieving signatures from those involved who are denying medical attention. That’s right, they will try and make you sign a sheet of paper, a contract essentially, saying that you are ok. These sorts of things are not insurmountable in court I don‘t believe, but the companies sure love to have those documents in hand when people try and sue them later. And it’s not just you, they make me sign it too.
The cop returned, “you’re right” he said, “there was definitely somebody else driving.”
“They told you?” I said.
“Not yet, but they will. I’m just over here letting them pine on it for a minute.”
The insurance adjuster got busy taking pictures and speaking to the girls as well while my supervisor and I began filling out the seemingly endless paperwork that revolves around these incidents. Anything and everything to limit liabilities. The cop returned hassling the girls.
Right around the time my cab was making it’s way onto the flatbed tow-truck now at the scene, another large Ford pick-up pulled alongside the accident and parked. A middle aged Latino couple got out of the truck and the cop wasted no time walking up to the woman and said, “Where you driving this truck ma’am?” to which she nodded. The cop quickly placed handcuffs on the driver and directed her to stand in front of his squad car. Undoubtedly, one of the girls had called the driver and convinced her to come back. She wept while the man, presumably her husband, assured her that he would come and bail her out. The Metro Officer continued with his duties of questioning the driver while the husbands thoughts turned to the pool of antifreeze on the ground and his significantly damaged truck. His anger about his “loss” was verbally apparent which in turn, made me angry.
“Yeah, maybe you should be thinking about the guy who’s at the hospital right now,” I said.
“Who the fuck are you?” the man shot back.
“Oh I’m just the guy your wife almost killed, no big deal. Man that‘s too bad about your truck bro. What a shame.”
“That’s enough,” The TA officer said to me realizing that this was a conversation that wasn’t going to lead anywhere good. No reason for the two of us guys to be around each other anyway. “Go sit in the tow truck, you don‘t need to be out here anymore,” he scolded me.
“Yes Officer.”
I retrieved my drivers license and T.A. permit from the insurance adjuster who had completed notating my information, but my carry on bag and the rest of my belongings where still in the cab, now atop the flatbed. While the tow-truck driver was working to secure my taxi, I climbed up into the smelly cab of the truck and sat in the well of silence. I thought about what had just happened, and that it just as easily could have been me at the E.R. right now. It just as easily could have been a slightly different kind of impact that resulted in something much worse. Standing there looking at the wreck for that time I was amazed the truck didn’t run up over top of us. It was no Big Foot V, but it was certainly modified with oversized tires. What if that happened? I don’t know and I suppose it’s best not to think about it. But in thinking about these things, and about how my passenger handled the situation, I realized that I had the same feeling about things that he did. Should I call my loved ones? Should I call the ones who care about me and tell them that their worst fears about my job almost came true? Of course you’d like to share it with somebody, but what does it really serve? Certainly at that moment, over the phone, it only serves to make people worry. You tell them only after they can see that you’re ok. My passenger knew that. I guess I did too.
“You ready to go?” The tow-truck driver said climbing in the drivers seat.
“Yeah let’s get out of here.”
“So are they going to put you in another cab and make you go back out?” he said making a U-turn to head west on Flamingo to head back to my company’s yard.
“Fuck no, I’m going home.”
We drove past the accident scene on our way back westbound on Flamingo. As we passed by, the young woman stared at me from the backseat of the police cruiser. I hoped that it was a look of empathy, but I have little doubt it was the look of self pity. Ten minutes later we were back at the yard. I opened the door to climb down from the tow-truck and the instant I made it on my feet again was when it hit me. My body felt like I had just played in two consecutive football games, like my entire body was in a knot that could never work itself out. My back was stiff, my neck was stiff, my knees hurt too for some reason. Perhaps my 6’3 frame forced my legs into the dash during the impact. I don’t remember. Regardless, it seemed obvious that in becoming aware of the impending impact my body tensed as a result of the fear, which was now playing a major roll in my stiffness. I felt like an 80 year old man. It took an unusual amount of concentration for me to be able to finish my required shift paperwork, count out my money and drop it in the company safe. My struggles were made worse by the 3 different cab drivers who made a point to come up to me, knowing that I had just been in an accident, to offer me the business cards of their favorite attorneys. Naturally those drivers would have received a nice kick back from the lawyer if I chose to procure their services. The strongest argument I heard regarding why I should “sue the bitch” was the simple fact that, had the situation been reversed and it had been me who had rear ended the 3 girls, there is no doubt that all three of them would be suing me, and my company as well. There is no question that this is true. This theory has been expressed, and proven in these pages previously.
You may recall a story I told some time ago about my worst at fault accident that I was involved in. I had dropped off a passenger at a UPS store who was a total bitch and as it turned out, she had no money to pay me. I was so steamed pulling out of the driveway, sans payment, that I collided with a car that was traveling in the middle turn lane or suicide lane as some call it. Due to the gridlock of cars in the two thru lanes to my left, coupled with my emotional state, I simply did not see the oncoming vehicle who, had he been obeying the rules of the road, would have never been there in the first place. But he was there and I did not yield and my front end ultimately scraped his entire passenger side of his car as he flew by me. Had I been 6ft further ahead at that exact moment, I would have gotten it right in my drivers door. Had I been 6 inches further back, I would have missed him entirely. I didn’t get T-boned thankfully but I did make substantial contact with his car as he crossed in front of me. After the impact both of us quickly exited our vehicles, for entirely different reasons mind you. I began walking towards him and asked, “Are you ok?”. The man’s actual response to the question, as well as the very nature of it, is something that I will always remember. The man looked at me, looked over at my taxi, then looked back at me and while shrugging his shoulders said simply, “I don’t know.” I knew how it was going to go down as soon as he said that and sure enough a month later I was served papers informing me of the pending lawsuit against both myself and my employer. I was also not surprised when I noticed who was representing the guy was none other than the “Heavy Hitter” himself. Due to the incessant moronic commercials, Las Vegas locals know the heavy hitter to not only be the biggest ambulance chaser in town, but probably the biggest douche as well.
As it turned out, that lawsuit was dropped and as such I have no judgments against me. I would venture that my accident mate was not totally forthright during his consultations with his heavy hitting attorney and when certain facts came to light later on-particularly that the Metro officer at the scene determined that both parties were at fault and cited both of us, as well as the fact that we had video documentation of the accident itself, it became clear to the Heavy Hitter that he had a shit case on his hands and it was quickly disposed of.
All lawsuit for profit business aside, and even though I was initially convinced that I was fine, it was clear that I was going to need some medical attention after all. Realizing that it would be unwise as well as unnecessary to pay for my own medical treatment in this situation, I sought representation the following day. However I did not choose one of the lawyers my fellow cabbies were pushing me towards but rather I chose a friend of my girlfriend’s whom she used to work for. Somebody I could trust. At the time I couldn’t say I was too thrilled at the idea of being “that guy”, however in hindsight it was the right move because I was off to the M.D. and a Chiropractor later that afternoon. My attorney could handle all of the business so I could simply focus on getting better.
My M.D. was concerned about my headaches, which I never get, but I passed all of the concussion tests with flying colors and after a brief once-over, the only thing keeping me from a clean bill of health was my severe stiffness so off to the Chiropractor I went. Over the course of the next two weeks I visited the Chiropractor 7 times. During each visit I was adjusted, then spent equal time on some electro shock therapy, a roller bed, and some light rehab equipment. Boy did I love that roller bed. Throughout that time I saw steady improvement everyday and even though my Dr. insisted that I needed at least another week of treatment, I never went back after 7 visits. I was right as rain.
Even though I had two weeks of treatment I was back to work after only one. In the months that followed my attorney saw to my lawsuit which he informed me was getting increasingly complicated as a result of the fact that the defendant was being pursued by 3 different parties all of which with legitimate complaints. My passenger, my employer and I all sought compensation and naturally the defendant didn’t have a large enough policy to appease us all. To this day, I have no idea what came of my passenger. I sure hope that he ended up alright. Regardless of his outcome I’m sure he racked up some hefty medical bills along the way. For my employer’s part, they had a totaled sedan on their hands and there is little doubt they pursued lack of use compensation in addition to the actual value of their vehicle. As for me, I had a relatively small claim the end result of which netted me just enough to cover my medical bills and my attorney’s end, with barely enough left over to compensate me for my lost time working. But that was ok, I wasn’t seeking a big payday. I was seeking my health and reasonable compensation for my time and I think I received those things. Besides, I’m sure my passengers attorney, and the team of them that my company employs had no problems sticking it to the bitch without my help.
In the end, these sort of things are part of being a cab driver I suppose. No different than the pukers and the posers, the bad tippers and the prostitutes, dealing with the drunk drivers comes with the territory. This is after all Las Vegas, home of the bars that never close. I certainly would not choose that it be this way, that even today the number of drunk drivers on the road is still appalling. If nothing else I should feel fortunate that I made it six years without an accident that harmed me. That’s a pretty good run I think and a testament to my quality driving. And I should be thankful that even though this situation was far from ideal, I did make it out alive and without a scratch. I guess now I can call Mom and tell her.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Mountain Brew
Pursuant to my policy, I’ll generally fork over one dollar a day to a homeless person. The bums love to hit up cabbies for change because we are easy stationary targets while staging, and we always have money handy. That and I think the homeless feel like they can relate to cabbies for some reason. The lowlifes know their own kind. At one time there was a stretch where I gave a dollar to the same individual every time I seen him for a period of about 3 months. I liked the guy, I suppose partly because he was mildly entertaining and partly because he called himself “Stoner”. Just like with the hookers, the self aware hobo’s are easily the most fun to converse with. Once he realized that I was good for a buck, it didn’t take Stoner long to figure out my patterns of working the downtown stands. He knew where to find me.
One night I was staging on the 3rd street stand. Situated in the cul de sac where 3rd St. dead ends at Fremont St. sits a cab stand right in between the Four Queens and the Fitzgerald that I have spoken of often. Adjacent to the Fitzgerald is a McDonalds which is where Stoner emerged from on this night. He walked out of the backdoor of the McDonalds holding what appeared to be a small bag of food, probably an item or two off of the value menu in one hand and a drink holder with two cups of coffee in the other. He seemed excited to see me parked there waiting for a fare as he hurried up to my window.
“Say man, I’m glad you’re here.”
“Oh yeah?” I replied.
“Yeah man you’re not going to believe this, I was just in the McDonalds there and bought a cup of coffee and this sandwich and the manager was really cool and gave me another cup of coffee for free!”
“Sah-weet,” I said, mildly excited for his score.
“Do you want to buy it? I’ll give it to you for a dollar.”
“What?”
“Surely you like coffee don’t ya? You can have this fresh cup for a buck man!”
“You’re trying to sell me the cup of coffee?”
“Yeah man.”
“…that you got for free?”
“Yeah,” he said with no idea where I was going. “You don’t want it?”
“No Stoner I don’t want to buy it and while we’re at it why don’t you get lost. And I don’t want to see you coming up to my window again. You come up to me again and we’re going to have problems alright? So get the fuck out of here,” I said.
“Jeez what’s you’re problem?”
“What’s my problem? Did you really just ask me that? The fact that you don’t know what my problem is is the same reason you’re fucking homeless dude. I’ve been giving you money for months, trying to help you out, and you get a free cup of coffee and have the nerve to come over here and try and sell me the fuckin thing? I know you're hard up man but I've been hooking you up for a while you can't throw you're boy a bone, you gotta work it out for you?”
All he had to say was, “Yo Funk I’m glad you’re here man I just scored this free cup of coffee and I want you to have it.” Had he done so, not only would he have earned my respect, but I would have given him a dollar for the thought anyway. Plus, he would have still been able to sell the cup of coffee to the driver behind me, which is what he did do after he walked away from my cab, because I don’t even like fucking coffee.
+++++++
A few months ago I told, or tried to tell a tale on twitter about the dumbest question that I had ever heard. Unfortunately the character limit on tweets made it impossible to effectively inform you of the incident. So I would like to utilize this space to tell you about it now.
I loaded a nice middle aged couple, I don’t remember where. At one point in the ride the lady asked me a variation of the most commonly asked stupid question. I may have mentioned in these pages before that the most commonly asked stupid question I hear is, “Do you live here?” That’s right, people have such a demented sense of the City of Las Vegas that they think that the entire City is the Strip. They can’t fathom that someone could, or would actually live here. Of course Vegas has over 2 million residents now but generally when I hear this question I will revert to one of my canned smartass responses along the lines of, “No I’m actually a cabbie in Chicago and I got a fare out here to Vegas so now I’m just working here trying to catch a fare back to Chicago.” Believe it or not, one time when I said that with a straight face somebody replied with, “Really, how much was that fare?” Which of course, is also a very stupid question. Or if the mood strikes I might reply, “No I commute to Vegas on my private jet from my home in the Caymans, so I can take your ass to the Mirage (or wherever it is that we happened to be going)” That one kills every time. But this lost soul didn’t ask me if I lived in Las Vegas, she asked me a modified version of that question, she asked “Where in Vegas does everyone live?”
Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking what the fuck Funk, that’s not a dumb question at all, in fact it’s a rather intuitive question because she managed to avoid the pitfall of the most commonly asked stupid question and in the process dove straight to the heart of the real issue. To that I will say, just bear with me for a moment, we’ll get to the real stupid part in a second. For now we'll stick with, “where in Las Vegas does everyone live?” She was smart enough to realize that people must live here, but she hasn't seen any houses. So what gives?
At the time she posed the question we happened to be in a place where we had a good view of the mountains in most every direction, which I realized could serve as a helpful tool to help answer the query.
“Well Vegas is a large valley,” I replied pointing, “there are mountains on all sides north, south, east, and west and as you can see those mountains are pretty far away. North to South the Valley is 30 or 40 miles I think. Basically, the neighborhoods stretch out that far. On the east and west sides, houses go all the way up to the edge of the mountains. On the north and south ends there is still room for growth but not too much.”
“Wow that’s amazing,” she responded.
“I know, a lot of people never realize that Vegas is as large as it is. There are over 2 million residents here now.”
“No I mean how they were able to do that,” she said.
“I‘m sorry?”
“How where they able to move the mountains like that?”
“Move the mountains?”
“Yeah how did they move them out so far?”
I was waiting, and thankfully the husband took over. “Honey, what do you mean?” he said.
“I don’t understand how they moved the mountains so far,” she said.
Taking a second to comprehend, the husband said, “Honey, you’re a school teacher.”
“Yeah but I don’t teach geography.”
You’re probably thinking what does geography have to do with any of this? I was kind of thinking the same thing but I think she meant geology. A Freudian slip? It’s possible. But perhaps more likely a pattern is emerging. It’s hard to say anything more about this really. “Dumbest ever” moments don’t come around very often and when they do they usually speak for themselves.
However a footnote worth mentioning is the occasion a few weeks later when I was telling this story to a couple of guys that were in the cab. When the timing is right or if they ask or if it’s relevant to something we’re talking about I will tell a story to passengers. In this case I was telling these guys about the “dumbest question" I’d ever heard. Only I ended it with the ago old line, “what does geography have to do with the price of rice?” To which one of the gentlemen replied, “Actually geography has a lot to do with the price of rice.”
Touche’
One night I was staging on the 3rd street stand. Situated in the cul de sac where 3rd St. dead ends at Fremont St. sits a cab stand right in between the Four Queens and the Fitzgerald that I have spoken of often. Adjacent to the Fitzgerald is a McDonalds which is where Stoner emerged from on this night. He walked out of the backdoor of the McDonalds holding what appeared to be a small bag of food, probably an item or two off of the value menu in one hand and a drink holder with two cups of coffee in the other. He seemed excited to see me parked there waiting for a fare as he hurried up to my window.
“Say man, I’m glad you’re here.”
“Oh yeah?” I replied.
“Yeah man you’re not going to believe this, I was just in the McDonalds there and bought a cup of coffee and this sandwich and the manager was really cool and gave me another cup of coffee for free!”
“Sah-weet,” I said, mildly excited for his score.
“Do you want to buy it? I’ll give it to you for a dollar.”
“What?”
“Surely you like coffee don’t ya? You can have this fresh cup for a buck man!”
“You’re trying to sell me the cup of coffee?”
“Yeah man.”
“…that you got for free?”
“Yeah,” he said with no idea where I was going. “You don’t want it?”
“No Stoner I don’t want to buy it and while we’re at it why don’t you get lost. And I don’t want to see you coming up to my window again. You come up to me again and we’re going to have problems alright? So get the fuck out of here,” I said.
“Jeez what’s you’re problem?”
“What’s my problem? Did you really just ask me that? The fact that you don’t know what my problem is is the same reason you’re fucking homeless dude. I’ve been giving you money for months, trying to help you out, and you get a free cup of coffee and have the nerve to come over here and try and sell me the fuckin thing? I know you're hard up man but I've been hooking you up for a while you can't throw you're boy a bone, you gotta work it out for you?”
All he had to say was, “Yo Funk I’m glad you’re here man I just scored this free cup of coffee and I want you to have it.” Had he done so, not only would he have earned my respect, but I would have given him a dollar for the thought anyway. Plus, he would have still been able to sell the cup of coffee to the driver behind me, which is what he did do after he walked away from my cab, because I don’t even like fucking coffee.
+++++++
A few months ago I told, or tried to tell a tale on twitter about the dumbest question that I had ever heard. Unfortunately the character limit on tweets made it impossible to effectively inform you of the incident. So I would like to utilize this space to tell you about it now.
I loaded a nice middle aged couple, I don’t remember where. At one point in the ride the lady asked me a variation of the most commonly asked stupid question. I may have mentioned in these pages before that the most commonly asked stupid question I hear is, “Do you live here?” That’s right, people have such a demented sense of the City of Las Vegas that they think that the entire City is the Strip. They can’t fathom that someone could, or would actually live here. Of course Vegas has over 2 million residents now but generally when I hear this question I will revert to one of my canned smartass responses along the lines of, “No I’m actually a cabbie in Chicago and I got a fare out here to Vegas so now I’m just working here trying to catch a fare back to Chicago.” Believe it or not, one time when I said that with a straight face somebody replied with, “Really, how much was that fare?” Which of course, is also a very stupid question. Or if the mood strikes I might reply, “No I commute to Vegas on my private jet from my home in the Caymans, so I can take your ass to the Mirage (or wherever it is that we happened to be going)” That one kills every time. But this lost soul didn’t ask me if I lived in Las Vegas, she asked me a modified version of that question, she asked “Where in Vegas does everyone live?”
Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking what the fuck Funk, that’s not a dumb question at all, in fact it’s a rather intuitive question because she managed to avoid the pitfall of the most commonly asked stupid question and in the process dove straight to the heart of the real issue. To that I will say, just bear with me for a moment, we’ll get to the real stupid part in a second. For now we'll stick with, “where in Las Vegas does everyone live?” She was smart enough to realize that people must live here, but she hasn't seen any houses. So what gives?
At the time she posed the question we happened to be in a place where we had a good view of the mountains in most every direction, which I realized could serve as a helpful tool to help answer the query.
“Well Vegas is a large valley,” I replied pointing, “there are mountains on all sides north, south, east, and west and as you can see those mountains are pretty far away. North to South the Valley is 30 or 40 miles I think. Basically, the neighborhoods stretch out that far. On the east and west sides, houses go all the way up to the edge of the mountains. On the north and south ends there is still room for growth but not too much.”
“Wow that’s amazing,” she responded.
“I know, a lot of people never realize that Vegas is as large as it is. There are over 2 million residents here now.”
“No I mean how they were able to do that,” she said.
“I‘m sorry?”
“How where they able to move the mountains like that?”
“Move the mountains?”
“Yeah how did they move them out so far?”
I was waiting, and thankfully the husband took over. “Honey, what do you mean?” he said.
“I don’t understand how they moved the mountains so far,” she said.
Taking a second to comprehend, the husband said, “Honey, you’re a school teacher.”
“Yeah but I don’t teach geography.”
You’re probably thinking what does geography have to do with any of this? I was kind of thinking the same thing but I think she meant geology. A Freudian slip? It’s possible. But perhaps more likely a pattern is emerging. It’s hard to say anything more about this really. “Dumbest ever” moments don’t come around very often and when they do they usually speak for themselves.
However a footnote worth mentioning is the occasion a few weeks later when I was telling this story to a couple of guys that were in the cab. When the timing is right or if they ask or if it’s relevant to something we’re talking about I will tell a story to passengers. In this case I was telling these guys about the “dumbest question" I’d ever heard. Only I ended it with the ago old line, “what does geography have to do with the price of rice?” To which one of the gentlemen replied, “Actually geography has a lot to do with the price of rice.”
Touche’
Saturday, September 11, 2010
L "The Ticket" - Epilogue
I wanted to take a brief moment and tie up a few loose ends that remain from “The Ticket” and address a few issues that did not become a part of the story. Perhaps a little hindsight perspective would be beneficial.
First and foremost I wanted to clarify that, unless otherwise noted all of the names mentioned in The Ticket are the real names of the individuals portrayed. These are after all public officials and I feel as though their words, not mine, should speak for them. As a result, all of the dialog expressed in The Ticket is essentially the exact dialog taken from the court transcripts themselves, which in the interest of accuracy (and to help my case building at the time), I went to the trouble to obtain. I say essentially because as unfortunate as it was, both of the transcripts I received were incoherent at times and in a few instances, varied from what Bishop and I remembered of the hearing. For the purposes of this story, I went to incredible lengths to ensure that the court hearings were fashioned in a truthful and factual manner and as such, the arguments and concepts represented therein, despite the incapability of a word for word rendering, can and should be regarded as fact. If there is any doubt about that, I would mention again that these documents are public and available upon request for a small fee.
Which brings up a point; I mentioned in The Ticket that it was a $55 fee to obtain a copy of the transcript but that is not correct. I believed that to be the case at the time. For a long time actually. But I learned much later that in fact the $55 was the fee to schedule the appeal, and that fee would have been refunded had I been victorious. I decided to omit this fact in The Ticket in the spirit of being true to what myself or the character knew to be true at that time. The actual fee to obtain the documents ranges on cents per page. If memory serves, the last one cost me $2.50.
A few words about the language of the Statute:
NRS 706-8845-9 Standards of conduct while on duty: While a driver is on duty he shall-not load or unload passengers or luggage at an intersection or crosswalk, or at any place or in any manner that will interfere with the orderly flow of traffic.
I raised the question that the statue does not expressly forbid simply “stopping in a lane of traffic” If we were to break down the statute for a second, you can see that there is really two parts to it. Kind of an A & B thing. There are two different ways you can violate the statute. A) Load at an intersection or Crosswalk. Or B) Interfering traffic while loading.
If we just focused on the A section for a second, it says that I cannot load at an intersection and or, I cannot load at a crosswalk. Personally I feel like that part of the statue is very clear. You can’t really debate much about that can you? If I loaded at an intersection, or a crosswalk, then I broke the law. If we can all agree that what I have just said is accurate, then we can move on. So now ask yourself this question, if there was no intersection present, and no crosswalks present, for example if I loaded halfway down a block, nowhere near a intersection or crosswalk, could any reasonable person still find me in violation of this A section? If there was no intersection, could you find me guilty of loading at an intersection? Of course the answer to this question is no. I think any reasonable person would agree. As I said in The Ticket, the intersection or crosswalk is a requirement, as without their existence a violation is not possible under the A section.
So I think we have established, under this premise, that there must actually be an intersection (or crosswalk) present in order to “load at an intersection”. And yet, it’s the stance of the TaxiCab Authority that no traffic needs be present in order to “Interfere with traffic” or the B section of the same statute. Which as you now know, has been my argument from day one. Somehow, miraculously, we can interfere with non-existent traffic while loading and yet are unable to load at a non-existent intersection.
If you assumed that “stopping in a lane of traffic” is sufficiently bounded within, or perhaps even the essence of “any manner that will interfere with the orderly flow of traffic” then I would say a couple of things about that. First the word “orderly” is very peculiar. What’s the use of it? If I’m stopping in a lane of traffic, than what does orderly traffic have to do with it? And for it’s part, why is the word traffic in there? If indeed all one has to do is stop in a lane, then there is absolutely no need for the word traffic. And for it’s part under this scenario, the entire A section of the statute becomes totally irrelevant for the same reason. It’s this sort of inconsistent and illogical word play on the part of the TA that leads me to my old adage, “Just tell me to fuck off”.
I say that all the time about a wide range of things. If you need to bullshit me or what have you, then please just tell me to fuck off instead, so I can go about my business. Tell me to fuck off and we can be friends. We really can. However when you bullshit you me as a way to prove me wrong or show that you’re right, or in an attempt to justify something, you really just end up wasting everybody’s time and as such, we can no longer be friends. If you’re dumb enough to think that I’m buying this nonsense then literally, there is no way that we could be friends anyway. To say nothing of your wasting my time. If however, you can just look me in the eye and tell me to fuck off, then if nothing else at least I know where I stand, and our friendship still has a shot. In Yiddish you say "gornisht hellfin"...nothing will help you. If I had walked into the TA hearing and the board had said, “We thank you for coming here today Mr. Funk, but we feel as though you have already lost, so in the interest of time we would just like to say fuck off and have a nice day.” If that is what I had heard that day I can honestly say that I would be perfectly ok with that. That might have made for a better story anyway, a shorter one too. However, when attempts are made to justify a ruling using illogical connections, inconsistent stances and questionable courtroom behavior, it really is the same as saying fuck you. Isn’t it? Personally, I would have much rather they did just that. If you love Jesus that’s great, but just tell me you have faith, and leave it at that,. Do this and we can be friends till the end. However the moment you start talking about Mt. Ararat and how science can prove the bible you’re going to lose me, and we can no longer be friends. That’s basically what’s going on here-the TA is using Mt. Ararat to prove the bible. Tell me to fuck off, tell me gornisht helfin. Tell me you have faith. But please please, don’t tell me that your interpretation is valid, just, and logical and mine is misguided. We can’t be friends then. Tyranny in democracy’s clothes does not suit me. But I digress.
I wanted to get back to the language, and perhaps spirit of the law for a moment. Some of the on goings of this ordeal have been played out already on a few online discussion boards that I frequent (shout out to phook and PT woot!) Considering the large number of people that visit these sites you are bound to get a wide variety of people weighing in, and it just so happened that an expert emerged. The gentlemen asked that I withhold his name, but he did comment on some of my thoughts regarding the statute. He was kind enough to allow me to publish his words so here:
“…To qualify my opinion I will share that I wrote regulation for a state agency for a number of years and grappled with this type of word play on a day to day basis. To me the statute consists of two independent clauses, which create two distinct methods of violation:
1) load/unload at an intersection/light
2) load/unload in a manner that will impede traffic
I do agree with your definition of 'will' and note that it is being interpreted too broadly. So I do not think you violated the second clause, which you believed the Officer thought you were violating. Unfortunately, by responding to the 'Judge's' questions you inadvertently may have admitted to violating the first clause.
However, if her questions and actions were out of the scope of her position, the admission is not relevant because it evolved from improper questioning. So I do believe you have grounds for appeal. If granted a new trial you could argue that there was no traffic and you were not an intersection.
As for your point about the reason for the rule's ambiguity it is likely written like that on purpose. I know that in my job I sometimes have to not write what I mean to write in order to enact a regulation that is not popular. If written in a particular manner it may excite the regulated parties, attract media attention and create backlash. Instead I would tasked with writing it broadly and contacting enforcement to give advice to them on interpretation.
In my opinion, the State legislature did not come out and write "it is unlawful to load/unload outside of taxi stands" because it would probably attract attention of cabbies like yourself. Questions would be asked, rationale would have to be given, ect. Instead they write it broadly and can probably sneak it into a budget amendment without serious backlash, then the TA is given advice on how to enforce it. If questioned they can point to public safety/traffic as the rationale and it will appear so because of how the clauses are written.
This type of sneaky writing is all too common and was the impetus for my career change. I found myself too honest to work in government. The day I asked, 'why can't I just write what we are intending to write?' and my boss replied 'because what we are trying to do would be DOA,' I knew that I was done.”
Outstanding stuff right there, to which I responded:
“If what you're describing is the norm when it comes to penning laws, isn't there a constitutional argument that can be made against them? If seems like part of a lawmakers duty would be to enable laws that are not susceptible to being misinterpreted. Isn't that your charge? It seems that misinterpretation for it's own sake sends one down a very offensive path constitutionally speaking. Perhaps this dilemma is the source of some of your moral conflicts?”
To which he replied:
“My agency was given the statutory authority to write regulations under a number of different state statutes. We have to follow the rules, which means we have to publish the regulations, hold a public hearing, and have it approved by a non-governmental body.
The non-governmental body is supposed to protect us from abusing our powers because they are/were members of the industry we are supposed to regulate and most of the time they do. However, lets say we have a problem to address that needs to be addressed. The agency realizes that by writing it a certain way we may be able to solve a problem want to address but don't have the support to do so.
So we write the regulation a certain way. It addresses problem A, and it also allows us a way to address problem B. We then call our friends in enforcement and tell them to be broad in interpretation. Now I am not saying this is the norm, but I will say this is not unusual.
When it comes to the legislature there tends to be less direct oversight of what they do. Things like this often get slipped into the budget. Some of the most asinine laws I have ever seen have come out of budget amendments. It is very easy to push in two lines of bullshit within a multiple thousand page document. This is more common and in my opinion a huge problem in this country, and I imagine it was the impetus for your law.
As for my moral conflict, I just saw that government was less like what I thought it would be and more like what I feared it was like. I realized I could be having a better impact elsewhere and had the experience to be taken seriously...“
Fascinating perspective right there I do believe. Personally, it had never occurred to me that it could have been over-broad on purpose. I wonder how that guy felt reading The Ticket? He’s probably never had the chance to experience something like that from the other angle.
In this vein, and to me the most troubling thing about this whole situation, was the shell game-esque justifications for the conviction or the upholding of it. If you followed The Ticket closely, you may have noticed that I was cited for violating the B section of the statute “interfering with traffic while loading”. I was prosecuted under that same premise, “interfering with traffic”. Yet strangely I was found guilty of violating the A section of the statute, “loading at an intersection”. Even more bizarre is the fact that the justification for upholding the conviction for “loading at an intersection”, became something linked back to the B section but in reality not a part of the statute at all, “stopping in a lane”. It seems that none of these things are related. I made a comment in The Ticket about how it’s hard to imagine a more obvious example of trial by surprise and this is what I was referring to. If any of you legal eagles out there would care to expand on the ramifications of such antics, if any, I would love to hear more about this. There may in fact be no issues whatsoever with something like this and that’s just it, I don’t know for sure. But it does seem a little odd. Doesn’t it?
That was what troubled me the most. What troubled Bishop the most was another thing entirely. Bishop can’t get over the actions of Board Member Miller. To Michelle and Bishop’s point, I too got the feeling that the two girls, the Chair and Vice Chair as it were, were against me from the very beginning. I think actually that this fact was not illustrated efficiently in The Ticket, and I only bring it up now to illustrate the difference between them and Member Miller. The Chair & Vice Chair, in my opinion, were basically just telling me to fuck off, and pursuant to my adage, I’m actually ok with this. There wasn’t anything I could have said to convince them I don‘t believe, regardless if they were biased or I’m just wrong. However Mr. Miller is on a different plain. Mr. Miller said for the record that the felt that the Judge overreached in some of her findings, proclaimed that the admission of the map is a slippery slope and even went as far as to explain how to avoid the problem in the future, and yet still for some reason he votes to uphold the decision?
That didn’t mean as much to me then as it does now. For the longest time I just took that to mean that I almost convinced him. He seen what I was saying but he didn’t completely agree. But this is actually not true. The more Bishop laid it out for me, and the more I thought about it, it became clear and I believe that I actually did convince Mr. Miller. I think he was in my boat from the very beginning, possibly even before I began to speak, and yet he still voted to uphold the decision. This is puzzling. Bishop believes this amounts to the ultimate fraud. From what I understand, when any form of governmental body is composed of a board such as this, there are certain fundamental duties that each member has an obligation and likely an oath to adhere to and participate in. The very reason that there are multiple members on a equal plain, is so that each member can express and more importantly, vote in accordance with, their own personal beliefs. To do otherwise is to breach your personal duty and in the process rob the body of its foundational nature and purpose.
Other Laws:
I turned to a fellow blogger and Las Vegas cabbie who goes by the name of "Unk", for some information regarding some of the other rules that seem to apply to our little issue as well. Those of you that are interested in the long-hauling topic as well as all of the behind the scenes of the industry itself, and I know that’s many of you, should visit Unk‘s page lasvegas-taxidriver.com. I’ve tried to put my focus on the creative side of things and the interesting person in the backseat and Unk is the guy who goes to all the meetings and is out there with his sign when the protests are going on and is always letting drivers know what’s what. I'm not aware of anyone more knowledgeable about the business.
Clark County Code 14.36.070 Pedestrians soliciting rides or business-
No person shall stand in a roadway for the purpose of soliciting a ride, employment or business from the occupant of any vehicle.
No person shall stand on or in proximity to a street or highway for the purpose of soliciting the watching or guarding of any vehicle while parked or about to be parked on a street or highway. (Ord 230 & 10(G), 1965)
Most states or counties have a law similar to this one and I believe its purpose is to prohibit hobos from hitching rides. Seems like everywhere you go you hear about a law where people can’t do this. Definitely around prisons. But interestingly, around here this law is interpreted to included taxis as well. In theory, myself and the people I loaded could have been cited from them flagging me, and me picking them up. I doubt many people are actually cited for this, but it helps serve to perpetuate the myth about flagging cabs being illegal.
Furthermore, Unk brought up a point that had I knew about at the time, there is no question that it would have became a part of my arguments. First read this law, it talks about a drivers right of refusal.
NRS 706.8847 Compliance with passenger’s directions; exceptions:
1. A driver shall not refuse or neglect to transport any orderly person to that person’s destination if:
(a) That person requests the driver to transport the person; and
(b) The requested destination is within the area allocated to the certificate holder who employs the driver.
(Added to NRS by 1969, 1247)
This law says that anyone that requests my services I must transport. I’d see this going down something like this.
DRIVER FUNK: Officer Hinkle you said that four people flagged me down is that correct?
OFFICER HINKLE: That’s right.
DRIVER FUNK: Flagged me down how?
OFFICER HINKLE: They were raising their arms, waving them.
DRIVER FUNK: I see, so they were requesting taxi service?
OFFICER HINKLE: Yes.
DRIVER FUNK: Officer are you familiar with NRS 706.8847?
OFFICER HINKLE: I believe that’s compliance with passengers directions.
DRIVER FUNK: That’s right. very good. So you’re aware of your ability, and duty, to cite me if I deny transport of any orderly person, correct?
PROSECUTOR: Objection your Honor, relevance?
DRIVER FUNK: Your Honor it’s the officer’s testimony that I can be cited for loading as well as not loading these passengers. It seems like there is little but of a conflict here and I request that this case be dismissed…
…Maybe it would have been more dramatic, I don’t know. But there point is well taken. By law I must transport orderly patrons.
Moving along, I raised the question in my first trial in TA court regarding lanes. I sufficiently showed that the officer was mistaken about that, and undoubtedly honestly so. But Judge Winner said something that I found peculiar. When I asked what the standard protocol regarding the number of lanes, she said that “there is no standard way of doing it”. I can’t believe that is true. If there is no standard method, and every officer has cart-blanche to label things as he or she see fit, it seems inevitable that vast confusion will arise when exact locations are very much relevant. I concluded that there is a standard method, and Officer Hinkle may have even been in compliance with it, although still incorrect about which lane, but for whatever reason Judge Winner seems to be unaware of it. Again, I refuse to believe there is no standard protocol in this regard.
The question was raised in the comments I believe asking me if this whole experience has soured me on the legal system? Will it deter me from trying again in the future? The answer is I don’t think so. One thing is for sure, my fangs will be much sharper the second time around. I made two vital errors by my estimation; the first was talking to Officer Hinkle at the scene. I should have remained silent. And the second was the way I handled the Officer and his name in court. If I could go back, those would be the first two things I would fix. And for that matter, to Officer Hinkle if you're reading this- I wanted to offer my apologies for my behavior. I don't condone your actions butI should have conducted myself with more respect, and held more tact. So knowing that, and simply what I’ve learned about the law throughout the processes, will make me a much tougher out the next time around there is no question. If anything, I would say this experience will make me more determined in the future. The system is a tough egg to crack but I'm confident that enough logic and what is right we can always prevail.
Last but not least I need to acknowledge a few individuals. As I eluded to in The Ticket, Bishop proved himself a vital asset to this adventure. Thankfully at some point it seemed he became personally vested in my plight and that commitment made my case exponentially stronger. I think he sees me as his prodigy, or perhaps a version of his younger self. My Daniel San to his Miyagi. In fact, I think he took the defeat harder than I did. It’s worth noting that shortly after the hearing, Bishop bought me a copy of the LSAT prep book, along with the encouragement to go to attend law school. A very awesome gesture and I am very thankful for all your help.
Sr. Investigator Henneforth was also very kind in taking time with me on multiple occasions to hear me out as well as offer his viewpoint on the matters. His candor and insight where extremely valuable to me and I appreciate that very much. Thank you Sr. Investigator!
So that’s it folks. The Ticket. The 50th fucking story. Doesn’t seem like a lot does it? I donno, I’m trying what can I say. I had a little bit too much fun doing this and I hope you liked it. As you may have conluded, I spent a significant amount of time putting all this together. It seemed like the more concise it got, the more concise it needed to be, perhaps even to a fault. But you guys stuck around for the whole ride and I am very happy for that. I have few things planned for the future, it'll be nice to start writing and thinking about other things, so stay tuned and as always I am very grateful for your readership so thank you to you too!
Back to work.
P.s. The Ticket is dedicated to my lost friend Tony LaForgia. I call Tony a friend but in truth I only knew him very briefly. Tony happened to hang out at the 3rd street stand downtown all the time. In fact, that was the only place I ever seen him. There was a period there where I started hanging out at that stand too, as another driver had recommended it, and soon thereafter I met Tony for the first time. Tony was your typical New York City Italian. The retired NYPD cop skinny as a rail, Phil Donahue look-alike was naturally gifted in the art of gab and considering his colored past, he always had a good tale to tell. And tell them he did. Tony may have been the last non-longhauling cabbie. I knew he was getting pressure from his company, but Tony was not the kind of guy to give into that bullshit. He would always talk shit about guys where were doing it.
At some point, I shared with Tony my experience about getting my flag tickets and how I was fighting them and every time he seen me he asked about it. I valued his background in law enforcement and would constantly be bouncing ideas off of him. Then he started calling me Clarence Darrow, which then allowed him to give me a hard time because I didn't know who Clarence Darrow was. Tony was the guy who would get in your face, and wave his finger at you, if you didn't know something that he thought you should know, but at the same time you knew he was a total sweetheart.
Not long my day in court had ended. I received the news that Tony had died of a heart attack. I was on the 3rd street stand one night and a guy came up to me that recognized me from talking to Tony and he told me the news. It was the only way I would have found out, I never had Tony's phone number. In an strange twist, I brought up in our conversation Tony's life as a cop and the guy looked at me like I was crazy? "You thought Tony was a cop?" the guy said. "Well yeah, that's what he told me. We talked about it all the time." "Tony wasn't a cop, his wife was a cop. Tony was a butcher."
Well what do you know? You got me there Tony you old bastard, I give you that. God bless you sir, it was a pleasure having known you and I hope you may rest in peace. ...and don't worry, I know who Clarence Darrow is now.
First and foremost I wanted to clarify that, unless otherwise noted all of the names mentioned in The Ticket are the real names of the individuals portrayed. These are after all public officials and I feel as though their words, not mine, should speak for them. As a result, all of the dialog expressed in The Ticket is essentially the exact dialog taken from the court transcripts themselves, which in the interest of accuracy (and to help my case building at the time), I went to the trouble to obtain. I say essentially because as unfortunate as it was, both of the transcripts I received were incoherent at times and in a few instances, varied from what Bishop and I remembered of the hearing. For the purposes of this story, I went to incredible lengths to ensure that the court hearings were fashioned in a truthful and factual manner and as such, the arguments and concepts represented therein, despite the incapability of a word for word rendering, can and should be regarded as fact. If there is any doubt about that, I would mention again that these documents are public and available upon request for a small fee.
Which brings up a point; I mentioned in The Ticket that it was a $55 fee to obtain a copy of the transcript but that is not correct. I believed that to be the case at the time. For a long time actually. But I learned much later that in fact the $55 was the fee to schedule the appeal, and that fee would have been refunded had I been victorious. I decided to omit this fact in The Ticket in the spirit of being true to what myself or the character knew to be true at that time. The actual fee to obtain the documents ranges on cents per page. If memory serves, the last one cost me $2.50.
A few words about the language of the Statute:
NRS 706-8845-9 Standards of conduct while on duty: While a driver is on duty he shall-not load or unload passengers or luggage at an intersection or crosswalk, or at any place or in any manner that will interfere with the orderly flow of traffic.
I raised the question that the statue does not expressly forbid simply “stopping in a lane of traffic” If we were to break down the statute for a second, you can see that there is really two parts to it. Kind of an A & B thing. There are two different ways you can violate the statute. A) Load at an intersection or Crosswalk. Or B) Interfering traffic while loading.
If we just focused on the A section for a second, it says that I cannot load at an intersection and or, I cannot load at a crosswalk. Personally I feel like that part of the statue is very clear. You can’t really debate much about that can you? If I loaded at an intersection, or a crosswalk, then I broke the law. If we can all agree that what I have just said is accurate, then we can move on. So now ask yourself this question, if there was no intersection present, and no crosswalks present, for example if I loaded halfway down a block, nowhere near a intersection or crosswalk, could any reasonable person still find me in violation of this A section? If there was no intersection, could you find me guilty of loading at an intersection? Of course the answer to this question is no. I think any reasonable person would agree. As I said in The Ticket, the intersection or crosswalk is a requirement, as without their existence a violation is not possible under the A section.
So I think we have established, under this premise, that there must actually be an intersection (or crosswalk) present in order to “load at an intersection”. And yet, it’s the stance of the TaxiCab Authority that no traffic needs be present in order to “Interfere with traffic” or the B section of the same statute. Which as you now know, has been my argument from day one. Somehow, miraculously, we can interfere with non-existent traffic while loading and yet are unable to load at a non-existent intersection.
If you assumed that “stopping in a lane of traffic” is sufficiently bounded within, or perhaps even the essence of “any manner that will interfere with the orderly flow of traffic” then I would say a couple of things about that. First the word “orderly” is very peculiar. What’s the use of it? If I’m stopping in a lane of traffic, than what does orderly traffic have to do with it? And for it’s part, why is the word traffic in there? If indeed all one has to do is stop in a lane, then there is absolutely no need for the word traffic. And for it’s part under this scenario, the entire A section of the statute becomes totally irrelevant for the same reason. It’s this sort of inconsistent and illogical word play on the part of the TA that leads me to my old adage, “Just tell me to fuck off”.
I say that all the time about a wide range of things. If you need to bullshit me or what have you, then please just tell me to fuck off instead, so I can go about my business. Tell me to fuck off and we can be friends. We really can. However when you bullshit you me as a way to prove me wrong or show that you’re right, or in an attempt to justify something, you really just end up wasting everybody’s time and as such, we can no longer be friends. If you’re dumb enough to think that I’m buying this nonsense then literally, there is no way that we could be friends anyway. To say nothing of your wasting my time. If however, you can just look me in the eye and tell me to fuck off, then if nothing else at least I know where I stand, and our friendship still has a shot. In Yiddish you say "gornisht hellfin"...nothing will help you. If I had walked into the TA hearing and the board had said, “We thank you for coming here today Mr. Funk, but we feel as though you have already lost, so in the interest of time we would just like to say fuck off and have a nice day.” If that is what I had heard that day I can honestly say that I would be perfectly ok with that. That might have made for a better story anyway, a shorter one too. However, when attempts are made to justify a ruling using illogical connections, inconsistent stances and questionable courtroom behavior, it really is the same as saying fuck you. Isn’t it? Personally, I would have much rather they did just that. If you love Jesus that’s great, but just tell me you have faith, and leave it at that,. Do this and we can be friends till the end. However the moment you start talking about Mt. Ararat and how science can prove the bible you’re going to lose me, and we can no longer be friends. That’s basically what’s going on here-the TA is using Mt. Ararat to prove the bible. Tell me to fuck off, tell me gornisht helfin. Tell me you have faith. But please please, don’t tell me that your interpretation is valid, just, and logical and mine is misguided. We can’t be friends then. Tyranny in democracy’s clothes does not suit me. But I digress.
I wanted to get back to the language, and perhaps spirit of the law for a moment. Some of the on goings of this ordeal have been played out already on a few online discussion boards that I frequent (shout out to phook and PT woot!) Considering the large number of people that visit these sites you are bound to get a wide variety of people weighing in, and it just so happened that an expert emerged. The gentlemen asked that I withhold his name, but he did comment on some of my thoughts regarding the statute. He was kind enough to allow me to publish his words so here:
“…To qualify my opinion I will share that I wrote regulation for a state agency for a number of years and grappled with this type of word play on a day to day basis. To me the statute consists of two independent clauses, which create two distinct methods of violation:
1) load/unload at an intersection/light
2) load/unload in a manner that will impede traffic
I do agree with your definition of 'will' and note that it is being interpreted too broadly. So I do not think you violated the second clause, which you believed the Officer thought you were violating. Unfortunately, by responding to the 'Judge's' questions you inadvertently may have admitted to violating the first clause.
However, if her questions and actions were out of the scope of her position, the admission is not relevant because it evolved from improper questioning. So I do believe you have grounds for appeal. If granted a new trial you could argue that there was no traffic and you were not an intersection.
As for your point about the reason for the rule's ambiguity it is likely written like that on purpose. I know that in my job I sometimes have to not write what I mean to write in order to enact a regulation that is not popular. If written in a particular manner it may excite the regulated parties, attract media attention and create backlash. Instead I would tasked with writing it broadly and contacting enforcement to give advice to them on interpretation.
In my opinion, the State legislature did not come out and write "it is unlawful to load/unload outside of taxi stands" because it would probably attract attention of cabbies like yourself. Questions would be asked, rationale would have to be given, ect. Instead they write it broadly and can probably sneak it into a budget amendment without serious backlash, then the TA is given advice on how to enforce it. If questioned they can point to public safety/traffic as the rationale and it will appear so because of how the clauses are written.
This type of sneaky writing is all too common and was the impetus for my career change. I found myself too honest to work in government. The day I asked, 'why can't I just write what we are intending to write?' and my boss replied 'because what we are trying to do would be DOA,' I knew that I was done.”
Outstanding stuff right there, to which I responded:
“If what you're describing is the norm when it comes to penning laws, isn't there a constitutional argument that can be made against them? If seems like part of a lawmakers duty would be to enable laws that are not susceptible to being misinterpreted. Isn't that your charge? It seems that misinterpretation for it's own sake sends one down a very offensive path constitutionally speaking. Perhaps this dilemma is the source of some of your moral conflicts?”
To which he replied:
“My agency was given the statutory authority to write regulations under a number of different state statutes. We have to follow the rules, which means we have to publish the regulations, hold a public hearing, and have it approved by a non-governmental body.
The non-governmental body is supposed to protect us from abusing our powers because they are/were members of the industry we are supposed to regulate and most of the time they do. However, lets say we have a problem to address that needs to be addressed. The agency realizes that by writing it a certain way we may be able to solve a problem want to address but don't have the support to do so.
So we write the regulation a certain way. It addresses problem A, and it also allows us a way to address problem B. We then call our friends in enforcement and tell them to be broad in interpretation. Now I am not saying this is the norm, but I will say this is not unusual.
When it comes to the legislature there tends to be less direct oversight of what they do. Things like this often get slipped into the budget. Some of the most asinine laws I have ever seen have come out of budget amendments. It is very easy to push in two lines of bullshit within a multiple thousand page document. This is more common and in my opinion a huge problem in this country, and I imagine it was the impetus for your law.
As for my moral conflict, I just saw that government was less like what I thought it would be and more like what I feared it was like. I realized I could be having a better impact elsewhere and had the experience to be taken seriously...“
Fascinating perspective right there I do believe. Personally, it had never occurred to me that it could have been over-broad on purpose. I wonder how that guy felt reading The Ticket? He’s probably never had the chance to experience something like that from the other angle.
In this vein, and to me the most troubling thing about this whole situation, was the shell game-esque justifications for the conviction or the upholding of it. If you followed The Ticket closely, you may have noticed that I was cited for violating the B section of the statute “interfering with traffic while loading”. I was prosecuted under that same premise, “interfering with traffic”. Yet strangely I was found guilty of violating the A section of the statute, “loading at an intersection”. Even more bizarre is the fact that the justification for upholding the conviction for “loading at an intersection”, became something linked back to the B section but in reality not a part of the statute at all, “stopping in a lane”. It seems that none of these things are related. I made a comment in The Ticket about how it’s hard to imagine a more obvious example of trial by surprise and this is what I was referring to. If any of you legal eagles out there would care to expand on the ramifications of such antics, if any, I would love to hear more about this. There may in fact be no issues whatsoever with something like this and that’s just it, I don’t know for sure. But it does seem a little odd. Doesn’t it?
That was what troubled me the most. What troubled Bishop the most was another thing entirely. Bishop can’t get over the actions of Board Member Miller. To Michelle and Bishop’s point, I too got the feeling that the two girls, the Chair and Vice Chair as it were, were against me from the very beginning. I think actually that this fact was not illustrated efficiently in The Ticket, and I only bring it up now to illustrate the difference between them and Member Miller. The Chair & Vice Chair, in my opinion, were basically just telling me to fuck off, and pursuant to my adage, I’m actually ok with this. There wasn’t anything I could have said to convince them I don‘t believe, regardless if they were biased or I’m just wrong. However Mr. Miller is on a different plain. Mr. Miller said for the record that the felt that the Judge overreached in some of her findings, proclaimed that the admission of the map is a slippery slope and even went as far as to explain how to avoid the problem in the future, and yet still for some reason he votes to uphold the decision?
That didn’t mean as much to me then as it does now. For the longest time I just took that to mean that I almost convinced him. He seen what I was saying but he didn’t completely agree. But this is actually not true. The more Bishop laid it out for me, and the more I thought about it, it became clear and I believe that I actually did convince Mr. Miller. I think he was in my boat from the very beginning, possibly even before I began to speak, and yet he still voted to uphold the decision. This is puzzling. Bishop believes this amounts to the ultimate fraud. From what I understand, when any form of governmental body is composed of a board such as this, there are certain fundamental duties that each member has an obligation and likely an oath to adhere to and participate in. The very reason that there are multiple members on a equal plain, is so that each member can express and more importantly, vote in accordance with, their own personal beliefs. To do otherwise is to breach your personal duty and in the process rob the body of its foundational nature and purpose.
Other Laws:
I turned to a fellow blogger and Las Vegas cabbie who goes by the name of "Unk", for some information regarding some of the other rules that seem to apply to our little issue as well. Those of you that are interested in the long-hauling topic as well as all of the behind the scenes of the industry itself, and I know that’s many of you, should visit Unk‘s page lasvegas-taxidriver.com. I’ve tried to put my focus on the creative side of things and the interesting person in the backseat and Unk is the guy who goes to all the meetings and is out there with his sign when the protests are going on and is always letting drivers know what’s what. I'm not aware of anyone more knowledgeable about the business.
Clark County Code 14.36.070 Pedestrians soliciting rides or business-
No person shall stand in a roadway for the purpose of soliciting a ride, employment or business from the occupant of any vehicle.
No person shall stand on or in proximity to a street or highway for the purpose of soliciting the watching or guarding of any vehicle while parked or about to be parked on a street or highway. (Ord 230 & 10(G), 1965)
Most states or counties have a law similar to this one and I believe its purpose is to prohibit hobos from hitching rides. Seems like everywhere you go you hear about a law where people can’t do this. Definitely around prisons. But interestingly, around here this law is interpreted to included taxis as well. In theory, myself and the people I loaded could have been cited from them flagging me, and me picking them up. I doubt many people are actually cited for this, but it helps serve to perpetuate the myth about flagging cabs being illegal.
Furthermore, Unk brought up a point that had I knew about at the time, there is no question that it would have became a part of my arguments. First read this law, it talks about a drivers right of refusal.
NRS 706.8847 Compliance with passenger’s directions; exceptions:
1. A driver shall not refuse or neglect to transport any orderly person to that person’s destination if:
(a) That person requests the driver to transport the person; and
(b) The requested destination is within the area allocated to the certificate holder who employs the driver.
(Added to NRS by 1969, 1247)
This law says that anyone that requests my services I must transport. I’d see this going down something like this.
DRIVER FUNK: Officer Hinkle you said that four people flagged me down is that correct?
OFFICER HINKLE: That’s right.
DRIVER FUNK: Flagged me down how?
OFFICER HINKLE: They were raising their arms, waving them.
DRIVER FUNK: I see, so they were requesting taxi service?
OFFICER HINKLE: Yes.
DRIVER FUNK: Officer are you familiar with NRS 706.8847?
OFFICER HINKLE: I believe that’s compliance with passengers directions.
DRIVER FUNK: That’s right. very good. So you’re aware of your ability, and duty, to cite me if I deny transport of any orderly person, correct?
PROSECUTOR: Objection your Honor, relevance?
DRIVER FUNK: Your Honor it’s the officer’s testimony that I can be cited for loading as well as not loading these passengers. It seems like there is little but of a conflict here and I request that this case be dismissed…
…Maybe it would have been more dramatic, I don’t know. But there point is well taken. By law I must transport orderly patrons.
Moving along, I raised the question in my first trial in TA court regarding lanes. I sufficiently showed that the officer was mistaken about that, and undoubtedly honestly so. But Judge Winner said something that I found peculiar. When I asked what the standard protocol regarding the number of lanes, she said that “there is no standard way of doing it”. I can’t believe that is true. If there is no standard method, and every officer has cart-blanche to label things as he or she see fit, it seems inevitable that vast confusion will arise when exact locations are very much relevant. I concluded that there is a standard method, and Officer Hinkle may have even been in compliance with it, although still incorrect about which lane, but for whatever reason Judge Winner seems to be unaware of it. Again, I refuse to believe there is no standard protocol in this regard.
The question was raised in the comments I believe asking me if this whole experience has soured me on the legal system? Will it deter me from trying again in the future? The answer is I don’t think so. One thing is for sure, my fangs will be much sharper the second time around. I made two vital errors by my estimation; the first was talking to Officer Hinkle at the scene. I should have remained silent. And the second was the way I handled the Officer and his name in court. If I could go back, those would be the first two things I would fix. And for that matter, to Officer Hinkle if you're reading this- I wanted to offer my apologies for my behavior. I don't condone your actions butI should have conducted myself with more respect, and held more tact. So knowing that, and simply what I’ve learned about the law throughout the processes, will make me a much tougher out the next time around there is no question. If anything, I would say this experience will make me more determined in the future. The system is a tough egg to crack but I'm confident that enough logic and what is right we can always prevail.
Last but not least I need to acknowledge a few individuals. As I eluded to in The Ticket, Bishop proved himself a vital asset to this adventure. Thankfully at some point it seemed he became personally vested in my plight and that commitment made my case exponentially stronger. I think he sees me as his prodigy, or perhaps a version of his younger self. My Daniel San to his Miyagi. In fact, I think he took the defeat harder than I did. It’s worth noting that shortly after the hearing, Bishop bought me a copy of the LSAT prep book, along with the encouragement to go to attend law school. A very awesome gesture and I am very thankful for all your help.
Sr. Investigator Henneforth was also very kind in taking time with me on multiple occasions to hear me out as well as offer his viewpoint on the matters. His candor and insight where extremely valuable to me and I appreciate that very much. Thank you Sr. Investigator!
So that’s it folks. The Ticket. The 50th fucking story. Doesn’t seem like a lot does it? I donno, I’m trying what can I say. I had a little bit too much fun doing this and I hope you liked it. As you may have conluded, I spent a significant amount of time putting all this together. It seemed like the more concise it got, the more concise it needed to be, perhaps even to a fault. But you guys stuck around for the whole ride and I am very happy for that. I have few things planned for the future, it'll be nice to start writing and thinking about other things, so stay tuned and as always I am very grateful for your readership so thank you to you too!
Back to work.
P.s. The Ticket is dedicated to my lost friend Tony LaForgia. I call Tony a friend but in truth I only knew him very briefly. Tony happened to hang out at the 3rd street stand downtown all the time. In fact, that was the only place I ever seen him. There was a period there where I started hanging out at that stand too, as another driver had recommended it, and soon thereafter I met Tony for the first time. Tony was your typical New York City Italian. The retired NYPD cop skinny as a rail, Phil Donahue look-alike was naturally gifted in the art of gab and considering his colored past, he always had a good tale to tell. And tell them he did. Tony may have been the last non-longhauling cabbie. I knew he was getting pressure from his company, but Tony was not the kind of guy to give into that bullshit. He would always talk shit about guys where were doing it.
At some point, I shared with Tony my experience about getting my flag tickets and how I was fighting them and every time he seen me he asked about it. I valued his background in law enforcement and would constantly be bouncing ideas off of him. Then he started calling me Clarence Darrow, which then allowed him to give me a hard time because I didn't know who Clarence Darrow was. Tony was the guy who would get in your face, and wave his finger at you, if you didn't know something that he thought you should know, but at the same time you knew he was a total sweetheart.
Not long my day in court had ended. I received the news that Tony had died of a heart attack. I was on the 3rd street stand one night and a guy came up to me that recognized me from talking to Tony and he told me the news. It was the only way I would have found out, I never had Tony's phone number. In an strange twist, I brought up in our conversation Tony's life as a cop and the guy looked at me like I was crazy? "You thought Tony was a cop?" the guy said. "Well yeah, that's what he told me. We talked about it all the time." "Tony wasn't a cop, his wife was a cop. Tony was a butcher."
Well what do you know? You got me there Tony you old bastard, I give you that. God bless you sir, it was a pleasure having known you and I hope you may rest in peace. ...and don't worry, I know who Clarence Darrow is now.
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
LVCC featured on Tao of Poker
Dr. Pauly is a poker writer & blogger first made famous for his comprehensive coverage of the World Series of Poker and his popular Tao of Poker blog, and now for his newly released hilarious account of his time living in Las Vegas covering poker in his book "Lost Vegas".
"Tao of Five" is Dr. Pauly's take on the Rolling Stone classic and a ongoing feature on his blog. Dr. Pauly recently reached out to me to see if I would be interested in being a subject for the series and of course I accepted. What an honor.
Below is a link to my 5 question interview, thought some of you might like to read it.
Tao of Five with Mr. Funk
"Tao of Five" is Dr. Pauly's take on the Rolling Stone classic and a ongoing feature on his blog. Dr. Pauly recently reached out to me to see if I would be interested in being a subject for the series and of course I accepted. What an honor.
Below is a link to my 5 question interview, thought some of you might like to read it.
Tao of Five with Mr. Funk
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