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Another NYC cab driver deep in debt kills himself

By Danielle Furfaro and Gabrielle Fonrouge

November 14, 2018 | 3:16pm | Updated November 14, 2018 | 4:46pm

Another debt-burdened New York City cabbie has committed suicide — the eighth for-hire driver to kill himself in the past year, Taxi and Limousine Commission officials confirmed on Wednesday.

Roy Kim, 58, of Bayside, Queens, hanged himself with a belt in his home on Nov. 5, according to the city’s medical examiner’s office. There was no immediate sign of a suicide note.

Kim, who had just purchased his taxi medallion last year, was more than $500,000 in debt from the deal and struggling to stay afloat, say friends.

“He was in a lot of debt from that,” said fellow driver Young Lee, who made friends with Kim while picking up fares from airports. “For a while he was making money but then it just went slowly down and down and down. All drivers are really struggling.”

For-hire drivers have been in a freefall for the past few years, and many blame the epidemic on the unchecked growth of ride-share companies such as Uber and Lyft. The city enacted regulations this summer, but some critics called them too little too late.

TLC Commissioner Meera Joshi offered condolences to Kim’s friends and family and promised to look for more ways to help anguished drivers.

“This tragedy underscores the importance of finding new ways for government, the industry and lenders to work in unity to address the financial challenges that are weighing so heavily on our licensees,” she said. “Modifying, restructuring and lowering loans would go a long way in providing relief and keeping taxi services available to New Yorkers for years to come.”

Taxi driver advocates say the city and TLC need to do more to help.

“Owner-drivers have suffered a deep and vicious slide from the middle class into crushing poverty, in a just a few short years,” said NY Taxi Workers Alliance Executive Director Bhairavi Desai. “This crisis can be fixed. The struggle for owner-drivers is reminiscent of the 2008 housing crisis. In that crisis, the industry, government, advocates, and philanthropy came to the table to find solutions. Now, banks and lenders need to work with the city and philanthropy to write off 20 percent of outstanding debts, lower interest rates, and restructure contracts so that no owner-driver has to lose more than 20 percent of their monthly income to the mortgage.”

Kim is the fourth cabbie and eighth driver overall to commit suicide since November of last year.

In October, Uber driver Fausto Luna jumped in front of an oncoming A train.

In June, cash-strapped yellow cabbie Abdul Saleh, 59, hanged himself in his Brooklyn apartment.

In May, another yellow cab driver Yu Mein “Kenny” Chow flung himself in the East River off the Upper East Side.

In March, Nicanor Ochisor, 65 — another yellow cabbie — hanged himself in his garage in Maspeth, Queens.

Corporate black car driver Douglas Schifter, 61, killed himself with a shotgun outside City Hall on Feb. 5.

In December, livery hack Danilo Corporan Castillo, 57, wrote a suicide note on the back of a summons he received — and then jumped out the window of his Manhattan apartment.

And in November, livery driver Alfredo Perez hanged himself.

The news of the suicide comes on the same day that the city council passed a bill introduced by council member Ydanis Rodriguez that will create a commission to look at falling taxi medallion values and come up with ways to help struggling drivers.

There is likely no way to help them. Things have changed like when cars replaced horses. Taxi's are being made obsolete by Uber and Lyft. Uber has already been shown to flaunt the laws set up to limit them and will likely continue. If they are successful, others will do it too.

As autonomous self driving cars become widespread, Taxi drivers will disappear, just like stagecoach drivers did. It's just progress. That's why Uber is making major investments in effortless cars.

Taxi drivers need to find another job. Simple as that.

Tony NJ couldn't they do this over in Jersey? I've been in many NYC taxis-- these guys stink- the cabs are filthy- none speak (or refuse to) speak English. The meter drops and your committed. For ex. Cab ride from LGA to 47th and broad- 60+. uber or lyft-- you get quote from the app BEFORE getting in 26.00. My wife and I were out in SEA used lyft for a week. Cabs running 20 to 25 per trip lyft 5 to 6.00. It's a no brainier. (They also speak English)

When I hear how NYC taxis are failing -- I say good bye and good riddens--- they over priced themselves outta business.

Sad that people feel the need to kill themselves to get out from under the debt. Bankruptcy would be painful, but would do the trick.

myob - sure these people could drive cabs anywhere. The problem is that the existence of Uber and Lyft has dramatically devalued their investments in their "medallions" - the cab license. They could be making payments on a 400,000 installment loan for a medallion now worth half that. This kills their prospect of reselling their investment. Coupled with likely reduced revenues, this sadly has led to some extreme despair. I live an hour from Manhattan and picked this up as a regional news item so I don't know the details like a local new Yorker but I suppose this market change was rather sudden. I addressed this subject to Frank because of a previous subject:

raids on airbnb rentals (by Frank [NJ]) Posted on: Nov 12, 2018 6:33 AM

Message:

I bet et all fours kill the value of taxi medallions. The new groups may have car leasing plans that seem to be akin to furniture rentals and anchor down the lessor to almost servitude --107.77.xxx.xx

raids on airbnb rentals (by Tony [NJ]) Posted on: Nov 12, 2018 6:55 AM

Message:

Frank - a close friend recently told me that NYC medalions (right to run a taxi) are now valued at under 200,000. They were once worth around 1 million. Also, I saw a story earlier this year about the high suicide rate among medallion owners. Many are financed and Uber and Lyft caused these medallion owners to be "upside down". --73.215.xxx.xx

MYOB of GA, makes some excellent points about the NYC cabbies.

Guys stink!!! Cabs are filthy!!! none speaking OR refuse to speak English!!

PLUS prices are less expensive with UBER and LYFT!!!

Welcome to the FREE MARKET!!!

"A cab ride from LGA to 47th and broad $60" To pay off $500000 medelion loan thats 8,333 rides. Assume 120 months (10 yr loan business loan), 69.44 rides per month, 2.31 rides per day. Is this possible? with the condition of Cabs and attitude of the drivers this may not be possible. The FREE MARKET prevails and supply and demand.... UBER and LYFTS were and are a much better deal.

Taxi driver advocates say the city and TLC need to do more to help. “Owner-drivers have suffered a deep and vicious slide from the middle class into crushing poverty, in a just a few short years,” said NY Taxi Workers Alliance Executive Director Bhairavi Desai. “This crisis can be fixed. The struggle for owner-drivers is reminiscent of the 2008 housing crisis. In that crisis, the industry, government, advocates, and philanthropy came to the table to find solutions. Now, banks and lenders need to work with the city and philanthropy to write off 20 percent of outstanding debts, lower interest rates, and restructure contracts so that no owner-driver has to lose more than 20 percent of their monthly income to the mortgage.”

The Taxi Driver comparison to the housing crisis. it could be said the market had peaked and the bottom feel out. The flipping market was HOT buy today and in 6 months or less make $100,000. Not bad!!! However as many home owners adjustable rate mortgages increased to the max rate the homeowners income never increased, this was part of the problem. SURE 2 or 3% looks great on the front end BUT in 5 to 7 years the rate of 7 to 8% did not look so good on the back end of the rate increased and income stayed the same. The appreciation rate of houses hit a wall in 2008. Plus the number of houses on the market in several states the market value of houses did not hold steady plummeting making it impossible to regain at least a break even point so there were major losses to homeowners and flippers and many were sunk.

Now with the cabi's many are sunk, $500,000 to a million dollars in debt may be time to spray paint the cab a new color and clean up the cab and the drivers too. Welcome to the reality of supply and demand. it may be time to change their business model!!! The FREE MARKET...

I know people have been talking about the ethics of taxi medallions since at least the late 80's/early 90's, when the price of a taxi medallion was somewhere near a million dollars (in 1980's money in New York City). The argument ran along the lines of how you were paying the government to have a monopoly...

The taxi medallions themselves came about during the Depression, when so many people were trying to make ends meet by driving for-hire, that taxi drivers were getting into fistfights over passengers. So the City said, "We're going to regulate who can pick up hailing passengers, and we're going to limit how many people have the privilege, and let's collection zillions of dollars in fees in the process."

The way Uber and Lyft get around the taxi monopoly, of course, is that they don't pick up hailing passengers; they make pickups that are arranged in advance, and those sorts of pickups weren't regulated.

From an NPR article last month--

...The market for taxi medallions in San Francisco is now totally frozen. No one has bought or sold one in over two years. The city recently held a meeting with drivers to talk with them about potential changes to the taxi industry — things like allowing corporations to buy medallions, which the city hopes would encourage sales.

Cab drivers who attended the meeting were supposed to stick up post-it notes with their comments on posters with the proposed reform. Almost all of the notes said the exact same thing: Please buy back our medallions. This is all that most drivers want.

At the meeting, drivers like Inder Jitghotra and Magdi Yousef spoke about how the medallion was impacting their lives. Inder's family bought six medallions. "We are under water," he said, "Some family members are going to file for bankruptcy. We have no other option." "I already suffered two heart attack[s]," Yousef said, "I feel like I am dying. This medallion is killing me slowly."

Around 700 drivers in San Francisco bought medallions, making the city about 63 million dollars. Over 150 drivers have defaulted on these now toxic assets.

Kate Toran manages the taxi program for the city. "If I had a magic wand and could say this could all go away of course I would," she says, "Who wouldn't want do that?"

The city is considering a few changes to thaw the medallion market, but unlike New York City, San Francisco has not put a cap on the number of Lyfts and Ubers. The city is also not talking about buying back the medallions, which Toran estimates would cost 160 million dollars.

"That's not on the list of recommendations at this point," Toran says, "I think that's unlikely."

Tony: I get your argument from the standpoint of those who bought medallions YEARS ago and they are now devalued.

But in THIS case, it flat out says that the guy paid over $500,000 for one just last year! Sorry, but that was a crazy investment a year ago. Most experts say that they have dropped to around $200,000 or so as of last year.

He literally paid someone at least DOUBLE what it was probably worth a year ago.

To put it in LL terms, it would be like paying $500,000 for a house where the FMV is pretty clearly around $200,000 according to real estate agents and property appraisers.

It sucks that he killed himself over it, yes -- but I'm not sure "the system" was the problem here. He made a very bad and risky investment at a time where most people would have known better, IMO.

- John...

I can feel bad for these owner operators but really there is no getting round the fact that they made bad deals. Often funded with $ from some questionable sources. The Russian "investor"started the ball rolling and would pay any price at the annual medallion auctions to effectively corner the market. Jersey? Nah not comparable as we have meager public transit, and each town has it's own taxi rules/permits. The airports are run by the Port Authority and they regulate taxi access. So in many other industries the "newbies race to the bottom was an unsustainable plan. Too,

I've only been to NYC once for a day. The whole medallion thing sounded like extortion/Mafia to this Midwesterner.

One cabbie told me he had to bring in $1400 per day to break even.

UBER and LYFT figured out what people want and made it easy. The cabbies did not speak English, the cabs smelled, the drivers smelled, they made up prices, and even tho the credit card machine was right in front of me they would not take a card "Machine broken, Cash only!"

The cab industry is tryin to fight fire with a squirt gun.

Quitcher complaining and get with the times, step up yoru game - make an app and take credit cards thru the app, and clean up the cabs & drivers.

Suicide is terrible and not to make light of a man's life...But I'm guessing the statistics for cab drivers is the same as any other profession. Suicide is everywhere. It's incomplete reporting to blame the medallions on a few suicides. And there may be more to the story than his medallion payment. (Guido or Ivan, a baseball bat, a example to others...?)

Signed,

I have a self driving car - I drive it mySELF!

BRAD

It's sad that these people got left holding the bag, but the whole medallion system is a racket, a hidden tax on the public. We have a similar system in Philly. Why in the world should someone have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to the gov't for the right to earn a living driving a cab? Wealthy investors would buy the medallions and lease out the cabs to the drivers 24 hours a day 365 days a year.