A Taxi Customer’s Rights in Vienna

A “genuine Viennese cab driver” orders an African-American opera singer out of his taxi.

Visitors taking a Yellow Cab in New York City are used to seeing a notice on the wall separating the front and back seats that enumerates the “Taxicab Rider Bill of Rights.” These include, among other things, the right to a safe and courteous driver who obeys all traffic laws; a noise-free trip (no horn honking or radio); a clean interior, exterior and partition; a driver who does not use a cell phone while driving, etc., etc. Plus, there’s the practical addition of a 24-hour consumer hotline telephone number: 311.

Taking a taxi, in New York City at any rate, has become noticeably more enjoyable since this change.

A similar sign outlining customers' rights would be really helpful in Viennese taxis as well — augmented, perhaps, with a notice saying, “Racist behavior by the driver toward passengers, including harassment of a xenophobic nature or attempts to politicize them, is also forbidden.”

The reason for this suggestion is a story currently making the rounds in the media — an African-American opera singer was thrown out of a taxi by “a genuine Viennese cab driver” when the driver ordered, “Get out of my car; I don't drive black women.” The driver, meanwhile, must be presumed innocent until proven guilty (something that appears tricky since the incident at the cabstand opposite the opera house has already attracted so much publicity).

All that is known for certain — and that’s the point here — is that both the Taxi Association and the Viennese city government offered totally inadequate responses to the incident. The city failed to make any impression on the bureaucrats who are otherwise always so concerned about Vienna’s image. Vienna has traditionally always supported the taxi monopoly so fares remained uniformly high, regardless of whether customers got a rust-bucket or a decent vehicle, and that unsuspecting strangers always got ripped off at the Schwechat air terminal if they took a taxi servicing that area.

But the Taxi Association’s reaction is the real scandal. Association spokesman Andreas Curda doesn’t think English-speaking cabbies are very important. That makes as much sense as saying, “Austria is too small a country to make good doping.”* This so-what attitude by the legal office of an important service organization has also been noticed by other taxi service customers who, for example, puzzled over a cab driver who once told a group of three people to take the trolley because his laptop was occupying the passenger seat next to him. By the way, in case of a similar incident, by all means contact the Taxi Association.

In a city like Vienna, it should be common knowledge that important public services are held to a certain standard of quality (only partly true there). But it’s even more important that the regulatory bodies — and those would be the city of Vienna and the Chamber of Commerce/Taxi Association — first and foremost proactively oppose any racism and then not try to brush it off with silly stories when incidents involving racism do occur. Racism on Vienna’s streets isn’t only limited to taxi drivers; it’s a reality that must be punished with sanctions wherever necessary.

* Translator's note: Peter Schröcksnadel, the Austrian president of the European Ski Federation, displayed his less-than-perfect English language skills when he made this observation about charges of doping among professional skiers several years ago.