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Boston cabbies now have to get fingerprinted
By adamg on Tue, 02/23/2016 - 7:56am
All 6,000 of them under a new Boston Police regulation. What about Uber and Lyft drivers? They're not cabbies, so exempt from any BPD regulations, but the Globe reports legislation on Beacon Hill would require those drivers to get fingerprinted as well.
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Comments
i like the idea of printing these drivers- especially uber/lyft
because as far as i'm concerned, fingerprinting the uber/lyft drivers helps legitimize the business.
Motivation?
This strikes me as really weird--is it anything other than a way for the BPD to build a fingerprint database? Have there actually been problems--actual problems, not hypothetical ones--running background checks without fingerprints?
Paranoia
If you aren't a bad guy, why would you care if you are fingerprinted? Other types of companies do this, too. Two people I know had psyco cab drivers.
hmm
yes, lets surrender liberties because we're innocent, thats a good reason
but..
but I have nothing to hide!!!!
"would you mind letting me take a look through your phone/email oh and go ahead and remove the blinds and shower curtain from your house as well"
Want to be a locksmith or
Want to be a locksmith or obtain a firearms license?
You are fingerprinted as part of the process of licensure for sensitive occupations and handling of materials.
Surprised everyone applying for driver's licenses (asking for permission to operate a potentially deadly multi-ton vehicle. ) aren't fingerprinted to make sure they are whom they claim they are while applying for a state id card.
Some states do this
California takes fingerprints when driver's licenses are issued.
Securities industry employees
Are required to get fingerprinted.
Bank of America requires fingerprints
BofA requires fingerprints of you want to cash a check if you don't have an account. Which is another reason NOT to do business at BofA. Left that bank when they started charging fees and fees and fees for everything including using a teller.
Did you know that the
Did you know that the government recently (a few years ago) required every single teacher in the Commonwealth to pay $50 out-of-pocket to be fingerprinted--even if the government already had their fingerprints on file, and even though all teachers already undergo formal background checks at the time of hire and periodically throughout their employment?
I have a bunch of teacher
I have a bunch of teacher friends and I recall it happening. Apparently you couldn't even go do it at your local PD; the folks I knew who had to do it had to go to a hotel ballroom or something, and it was a private contractor doing it - everyone was deeply skeptical that it was primarily a money-maker for some well-connected company rather than a meaningful safety measure, but I don't know much about the rationale for the program. Does anyone know how much more effective this is than the CORI check they ordinarily do, or how much more effective it would make that process?
Anyone dealing with kids
It was not just BPS teacher who are being fingerprinted. It is any profession that is dealing with kids and other persons covered under certain professions that deal directly with children, the mentally challenged, and seniors. It is part of the CORI/SORI system.
Any and all persons in these categories, including licensed day care facilities, must have all new employees finger-printed. Any already on staff have a cut-off date to be met to get into the system or loose their CORI/SORI clearance.
While it may seem invasive to privacy, these improvements to the system are hope to eliminate the potential for problems.
Most companies are reimbursing employees. Price, depending on the service under contract may run between $35 and $50. Worse case, save the receipt as it is a work-cost deduction on taxes.
CORI has limits
In-state CORI checks has limitations. First, it is limited to in-state checks only, meaning that a CORI does not automatically assure the person does not have a record or other restriction from another state. CORI is also limited to 5 years from the last date of parole served. Meaning if a person was convicted of an offense, and their last day of parole was December 31, 2010, they scroll off the system after December 31, 2015.
SOs with a category of Level 1 to 3 are on a different registry (SORI), and that would show up almost in perpetuity unless a person can get a court to remove them for certain and limited reasons (i.e. a childhood teen tryst that resulted in prosecution forcing a trial and conviction - one of the flaws in the SO registry laws).
Fingerprints will allow for a broader search and check with out-of-state systems.
Like CORI/SORI it is not a perfect tool but another in the toolbox that will help improve the system that is trying to protect children and other at-risk population peoples.
It's worth noting that even volunteers in some facilities now have to get a CORI/SORI check just to volunteer time.
Still goin' strong.
I just recently got a side job teaching for a local adult ed program-- it's not part of the public school system proper but they use public school buildings after hours for the classes. Had to go through the whole fingerprint thing, and while it was 'only' $35, I did have to pay for it out of pocket, and it's not like that kind of teaching job pays all that much to begin with.
I also had to leave my main job early one day to go to some random building down by the Seaport, which was apparently the closest place to get it done. It actually would have been much more convenient (if slightly dystopian) to just go get fingerprinted at the local police station, but I guess we need the middle man.
While this is great and all.
While this is great and all. What's to stop the prevalent practice of cabbies allowing friends and family to drive their cabs off the radar?
umm excuse me
but our city's cab drivers are a bastion of honesty and font of good intentions
Well now we can take
Well now we can take fingerprints off the steering wheels and check them against this new database!
You'll have better luck
You'll have better luck taking fingerprints from the drivers' cell phones. That's where their hands usually are.
ID Tags
I believe hackneys are required to have a picture ID displayed in their taxi or on their person at all times. It's a picture ID.
What needs to get better control is the fleet of gypsy cabs and drivers. These are the people that hang around shopping centers and similar locations offering rides to people in their private cars for a small fee. While BPD tries to control this they lack staff to keep up with it, so even when people are cited they are often back at it within days.
Never seen that? Visit South Bay's Stop & Shop. Some are pretty bold and will openly solicit you just out the door. They usually wait for someone to walk out with the groceries and stand and wait for a while looking back and forth. This is the body language to show you are looking for a gypsy driver for transportation.
gypsie cabs
dude we just call it uber now
On the one hand, we do need
On the one hand, we do need some regulation to keep the public safe.
On the other hand, these unregulated taxis perform an important service. They help low-income people get home with their shopping bags at a reasonable price. Plus the money goes to the person doing the work, not to Ed Tutunjian.
Do licensed cabs avoid South Bay? I'd be surprised if they coexist peacefully with unlicensed ones. If they're avoiding it, maybe it's a sign we need to provide an alternate type of licensing to allow more cars to serve outer neighborhoods, like NYC's new Boro Taxis.
We need to regulate drivers and vehicles
for safety. We do not need to regulate the number of companies operating these services. Nor do we need to regulate where and how they can pick up and drop off passengers. If a cabbie drops off a passenger at a given location, they should be able to pick up somebody at that same location.
If you look closely, the
If you look closely, the person behind the wheel usually isn't the same person in the id badge picture.
Which isn't easy
It's hard enough to verify people's ID when looking at them from the front, let alone the back. Besides, you only see the photo once you're in the cab and after it's already started moving.
The solution is to have the PD follow up on complaints and be ready and able to take away someone's hackney license. Uber "fires" you after too many bad review; Boston should do the same.
That's great and all
but when will the city require them to learn how to drive?
i've taken dozens and dozens
hundreds and hundreds now? cab rides and in my personal experience the drivers ability hasn't ever been a question except maybe once- and it wasn't a boston cab. i find them competent drivers, with somewhat of a range as to their ability to navigate, whether true or feigned. a lot of people conflate aggressive driving with poor driving- this, imo, just isn't the case.
that being said it was a great quip/joke and i gave it a thumbs up.
i forget if i ever bothered to write about my nightmare cab trip here, but it involved the guy being over an hour late, picking up multiple fares while i was in the car, one of which was asking to go to the hospital, another was asking me if i could get him drugs, it goes on and on. eventually we were stacked three in the front and three in the back. i was drunk enough to put up with most of it until we started back tracking away from my destination- finally i just told the guy to stop and drop me off at the next parking lot that was well lit. called a cab company from the next town over and got to my 'date' rather late, but at least with an interesting experience.
also, as i'm writing this, i'm remembering more, the guy acted indignant towards me when i scoffed and laughed at him when he asked why i was asking to be let out. he explained to me that i just didn't understand :( :( lolol
I'm sure there are plenty
of great taxi drivers out there, and I've had some good rides as well. But the things I see on Storrow, and even in Kenmore every day...man. It gets worse the closer you get to Leverett Circle and the tunnel too, and the same goes for cars with LV plates. All sorts of last minute merges, cutting people off, cutting across multiple lanes to pick someone up, blocking traffic, etc. I've even seen a mirror ripped off on Storrow by a no-look merge–I thought the guy was actually going to murder the cabbie. Like legitimately end his life.
last minute merges/cutting people off
this is me, every day on 93N by the theater leaving cambridge getting assaulted by MTBA buses
on the plus side theyre so predictable that its become easy to avoid and i just watch them endanger the lives of other people instead of me
MTBA
Mean Time Between Accidents - that sums it up perfectly
noice
im guessing in the winter, that mean time goes up up up? ;)
I just want...
I'd like to see cabbies (and Uber drivers) use their signals and cease pulling over in horrible places (eg., the intersection of Dartmouth and Columbus)
Or stopping in the middle of a side street instead of pulling to the side, even when there is plenty of room.
Cabbies are terribledrivers (or choose to drive terribly). And fingerprints won't fix that.
agreed
I don't know how many times I see cabbies double parked on a main road with their hazards on, when there is an empty parking spot or two a few feet away from them. Boggles the mind.