Taxi service in Youngstown.....

[AllanY2525]

Love the card...it's cute

[Peggy Gurney]

They seem to acquire a good number of complaints.
I've had at least 5, maybe 6, customers call us and say "how soon can YOU be here? I called Independent Radio and they said an hour".
Another customer called and said they called IR and was told 20 minutes, and an hour later, they still weren't there.

So here we are, picking up the slack. 

[Towntalk]

Here, Independent Radio Taxi has owners who in turn hire drivers. The owner usually drives during the day, and the hired driver at night. Once the old timers either died off or retired, the service started going down hill. When I was working nights at the newspaper I took the cab to and from work on more than a regular basis and had very few problems but then many of the old timers were still there, but since I retired, I no longer needed cab service, so I don't know how they are today.

[AllanY2525]

That's very true that things vary from one area to the next.  Most drivers down here
lease the vehicle from the company, so insurance, tags, etc are already taken care of.
They are also independent contractors, for the most part.  There are are some owner
operators also (they usually rent out the vehicle then pay a lot fee to the cab co. they
are working for).

Same deal here on rates the county cab association sets the rates (they call them
"tariffs").  I don't think the cabs here are allowed to use vehicles with removable
signage...they want it to be obvious which vehicles are being used as taxis.

[Peggy Gurney]

Uber Cab is getting in trouble down here, as Maryland law requires that they have a properly registered vehicle with commercial tags and inspection sticker, a valid for hire license with criminal background check,  and a mandatory $2 MILLION commercial liability for each vehicle in the fleet.

The problem with Uber is the [unmarked] personal cars, no license and not enough insurance, mainly. I don't know if they do criminal background checks. If the city and county want to make some easy money they should catch them with "mystery shoppers" when they come to the area.

They got kicked out of San Francisco a while back until they complied with local law there.  The city had warned that vehicles would be impounded if found operating in the city.
The other thing I don't like about them is the changing rates......they charge higher than the allowed rate during rush hour.

Wow.
Mohoning County and Youngstown do not have such strict laws concerning taxi services.   As independent contractors, we do use our own cars, that are clearly marked with the company information on magnetic decals, which we can remove when not working. The company has commercial insurance that covers all of the drivers/cars.

As for rates, we use flat rates, which are the same all the time.

[AllanY2525]

Uber Cab is getting in trouble down here, as Maryland law requires that they
have a properly registered vehicle with commercial tags and inspection sticker,
a valid for hire license with criminal background check,  and a mandatory
$2 MILLION commercial liability for each vehicle in the fleet.

The problem with Uber is the [unmarked] personal cars, no license and not
enough insurance, mainly. I don't know if they do criminal background checks.
If the city and county want to make some easy money they should catch
them with "mystery shoppers" when they come to the area.

They got kicked out of San Francisco a while back until they complied with
local law there.  The city had warned that vehicles would be impounded if
found operating in the city.

The other thing I don't like about them is the changing rates......they charge
higher than the allowed rate during rush hour.

[Towntalk]

That's because all the old timers are no longer there, and most have passed away. Independent use to be a good company back in the day.

[Peggy Gurney]

Not really.  We've had quite a few disgruntled Independent Radio customers come to us.
3 of them are my regulars.

[iwasthere]

Uber Cab is not working in the area - yet. I have no doubt they will be at some point.

I work for College Cab.  We are doing a very good business.
Independent Radio is the only other taxi service I know of, and they're not real reliable. We've gotten a lot of business from them.

I totally agree with you pg on the taxi service concerning Iindependent radio. their cabbies are professionals and frdly and informative.

[Peggy Gurney]

Uber Cab is not working in the area - yet. I have no doubt they will be at some point.

I work for College Cab.  We are doing a very good business.
Independent Radio is the only other taxi service I know of, and they're not real reliable. We've gotten a lot of business from them.

[AllanY2525]

I work for a transport ompany in my area and was just curious about the taxi
business in Youngstown.  Does anyone here in the forum know if they are doing
a good business in the area, and whether or not Uber Cab is operating in the
greater Youngstown area?