Many taxi passengers indifferent to long-hauling checkpoints

Despite years of agonizing about taxi drivers who long haul unsuspecting tourists, the Nevada Taxicab Authority came across a contingent that didn’t care during its most recent two-day crackdown.

For the first time, the authority’s small police force set up a checkpoint just east of Terminal 3 after hearing that drivers had developed a new, out-of-the-way route for running up the fares on passengers heading to the Strip.

However, the authority’s chief investigator, Ruben Aquino, said only about three passengers chose to press complaints out of the 80 cabs that were stopped on Thursday.

“People were not willing to prosecute over a couple of dollars,” he said. “They just wanted to get to their hotels.”

As a result, the authority police on Friday manned only a checkpoint at the southbound entrance to the tunnel that runs under McCarran International Airport’s runways, the favorite path for long hauling. About one-fourth of the 48 taxi drivers that passed this point on Thursday were given long-hauling citations, Aquino said, but he did not have numbers for Friday, the second day of the two-day enforcement action.

“We are going to have to get some intel and rethink that one,” said Aquino, of the Terminal 3 checkpoint.

At the authority’s January board meeting, Harry Waters, McCarran’s assistant director for landside operations, detailed a couple of routes that drivers were using to run up unnecessary mileage. In one example, the most direct path to the Strip heads east from the terminal to a large U-turn toward Paradise Road; instead, some drivers head straight at a juncture and wind through the neighborhood north of the terminal.

This is where the authority set up the checkpoint.

Waters said he would undertake an effort to educate drivers on the correct route. But when asked whether it was a matter of deliberately padding the fare, he said, “I’m trying to be diplomatic.”

The tunnel route, which goes to westbound Las Vegas Beltway and then to northbound Interstate 15, results in a typical fare of about $25 instead of about $15 taking the shorter Paradise Road. However, if drivers convince passengers that it is faster and less congested — what’s known as selling the tunnel — then long hauling is legal.

At that checkpoint, the six authority officers on duty would wave cabs to the right lane and ask the drivers to turn off their meters and for their destinations. Then, they would pose the same question to the passengers.

Officer Stafford Edwards would follow up, “Did you discuss the rates with your driver? Do you know that taking this route will cost more? You’re cool with that?”

With several passengers going to resorts such as Trump International, Encore, The Venetian and The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, the answers were a series of yeses. The cabs were then allowed to go.

Any destination south of the airport makes the tunnel legitimate automatically.

The last crackdown came during the summer. Aquino said the authority plans to step up the frequency of the efforts.

Contact reporter Tim O’Reiley at
toreiley@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5290.