Taxi rides are a convenient means of travel for most city dwellers, but for some the experience can downright stink! This is why the San Diego Regional Airport Authority is now giving cab drivers a smell test.
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Airport traffic officers now include smell on their inspection lists; and if drivers can’t pass the smell test, they miss out on fares! A spokesperson for the airport says the test isn’t meant to be offensive, it’s meant to keep the customers happy. However, many drivers feel that the test is offensive and borderline racist, says a KPBS report.
About 70 percent of cab drivers in the San Diego area are East African immigrants, and they are no strangers to discrimination. An organizer for the United Taxi Workers of San Diego said, “Drivers report (that) passengers have called them ‘terrorists’ and said some incidents have been enough for drivers to want security cameras installed in their vehicles. One driver, who declined to be named for fear of losing his job, said passengers have asked him to repeat street names over and over so they can laugh at his accent.”
In response to the allegations of discrimination, an airport spokesperson responded by saying, “Our airport traffic officers who conduct these searches are very sensitive to cultural differences. Any type of violation of body odor is very extreme. It’s very rare.” The spokesperson goes on to say “There’s nothing racial about the airport’s inspection. Inspectors only confront drivers about body odor, at most, a few times a year.”
This isn’t the first incident of wacky rules pertaining to cab drivers. In New York City, taxi drivers must adhere to a professional dress code that prohibits cutoff jeans and tank tops. When the Olympics were being held in Beijing, city officials placed numerous restrictions on what cabbies could and could not do. Some rules included being nice to the customers, not smoking in the cab, and cleaning the cab if it smelled bad; anyone caught violating the rules were subject to losing their licenses.