“You’re dealing with an individual who doesn’t have a background check, doesn’t have a meter so they might not be charging them fairly,” said Jorge Duran, code enforcement supervisor for Victorville. “The vehicle’s unmarked, so the public may be subject to riding around in a vehicle that is unidentifiable.

And if he decides to take off with them, it would be difficult to find.”

Complaints about unlicensed cab drivers are on the rise since the beginning of the year, said Duran.

That’s no surprise to Allen Moser, a driver with San Bernardino-based Yellow Cab Co., one of only two companies licensed in Victorville.

“We pay a lot of money to be licensed up here, and if you don’t have a license in your cab to be registered, you have no business picking up anybody,” Moser said. “I’ve given code enforcement a lot of license numbers, but they haven’t done a thing.”

Another drawback of riding in an unlicensed taxi is insurance. Not only are passengers at risk, but so are drivers who might happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and get involved in an accident with a cab.

To reduce Victorville’s exposure to lawsuits involving taxi cabs, the City Council recently voted to raise the required liability coverage to $1.5 million from $350,000. According to Daily Press research with individual cities, the new limit appears to be the highest in the state.

“The city has to spend reasonable amounts of money in defending against claims and litigation that, quite frankly, it should not be involved in because it doesn’t have jurisdiction,” said Chuck Buquet, the risk manager.

But the ordinance has put one cab company out of business in Victorville. Bill Fowler found out about the ordinance after he had already turned in his paperwork for a business license renewal.

“None of us even knew that the law had changed,” he said.

His insurance agent, George Wilk, said the repercussions will include a reduction in reliable cab service.

“It’s onerous and it’s capricious, and it’s detrimental to the people of Victorville who expect to have a reasonable public transportation,” Wilk said, adding that more companies would begin operating underground to avoid paying a higher premium.

Both Fowler’s company, Yellow Cab, and another cab company, Valley Cab, use Wilk for their insurance needs, and they are going to have to pay about $10,000 a car for the new premium. That’s more than double what they pay now, at $3,500. Or they could choose a $100,000 deductible.

A deductible that high would mean most accidents are paid by the cab driver, said George Addoum, owner of Valley Cab.

“How many accidents go above $100,000? I haven’t seen that,” he said.

Addoum, whose business is mostly non-emergency medical transport, said he doesn’t need to pick up people in Victorville and will likely let his business license expire. But he said meter prices will probably rise because of the higher rates, and cabs will not be as available.

“When they call and I say I can’t pick up in Victorville, it will be because of the insurance,” he said.

For John Abbey, the $1.5 million requirement may not take away the supply of cab rides, but it will make the costs of staying licensed “astronomical” — leading some to speculate that most cab companies who can afford to do business here will be from out of town.

“There’s enough people in Victorville that there will be a profit here, it’s just who’s going to make it? The insurance companies or Victorville or me?” Abbey said.

http://www.vvdailypress.com/news/20070209/victorville-tightens-taxi-rules