Give Him Credit For Being Such A Moron

A cab driver who knows he’s driving around the former transportation reporter for the Post and still refuses to take his credit card is basically an idiot:

I went to taxi court, won my case and still wound up feeling guilty.

My cabdriver, Surjit Singh, had been completely in the wrong, but as I watched him squirm on the hot seat three feet away from me as though he were being tried for high treason and not Taxi and Limousine Commission Violation No. 2-61A1, I began to regret ever calling the city to complain.

Back on Dec. 28, Singh took me from Kennedy Airport to Brooklyn.

I told him that I used to be the transportation reporter for The Post and well understood the concerns about the new GPS and credit-card systems that had sparked two strikes. We even talked about a slew of recent news stories about how drivers were being fined for refusing to allow passengers to pay by plastic.

Then, as I watched the meter tick off the fare, I realized I wasn’t going to have enough cash to also give him a tip. But when I asked if I could pay by credit card, he lied and said the system was broken. I told him that it was clearly working and that I would tip double, more than covering the 5 percent transaction fee, but he insisted I go to an ATM.

After the ride, I called the city, and they scheduled a hearing for six weeks later, by which time I was no longer the slightest bit upset about it. Due to this cooling-off period, as few as 20 percent of passengers actually end up following through on their complaints, officials said.

. . .

An hour later, the judge came back with her decision. Singh was fined $500 for refusing to let me pay by credit card and for fraud, violations that put four points on his hack license. Two more points within a 15-month period and he would be suspended for 30 days; six more and his hack license would be revoked.

The whole thing seemed so excessive that if I had had the $500 in my wallet, I might have handed it to him.