Clareified

It was bound to happen.

You file enough complaints against crazy arse taxi drivers, you will one day get the same judge you had in another case.

That day was today.

Well, really Wednesday (but go with it.)

The African-American judge with the salt and pepper dreadlocks, opened the door to the case room for me.

“Come in, Ms. Summers,” she said reading my name off the case file.

When she made eye contact, a brief look of recognition flashed across her face.

She didn’t say anything.

Neither did I, but I worried.

Would this be bad for me?  Will I come off as just a malcontented chronic complainer?

Or, as F-train would later say when I told him that I had another hearing because the cab driver tried to kill me, “Why do I think you’re probably exaggerating?”

No matter.

I was already here.

I had practiced my testimony over lunch with Drobbski that afternoon.

“I was coming from a friend’s birthday party, when I hailed a cab. I saw an on-duty cab stopped at the red light and made my way across the street to climb inside.  Just as I reached the passenger side door, the driver stuck his head out and asked if I was ‘going to the city?’ The light turned green, and when I said no – he sped off, leaving me in the middle of street in the midst of now on-coming traffic.

I memorized his number – as I do now whenever I hail an on-duty cab – and wrote the information, along with the time and intersection on the back of my business card when I got into the next cab.

At this point I entered said card into evidence and the judge read the contents into the record.

I said I had nothing further and then it was the cab driver’s turn.

His defense went something like:

“You saw me? My face?”

Oh, he wants an answer?

“I don’t remember the driver’s face.  Just that this is his cab number.” I said the cab number again.

He then claimed to 1) have a partner 2) not be on duty after midnight and 3) never refused to take a passenger in his life.

Oh…right up until the judge showed that 1) the trip sheet showed that he was driving and 2) that he got off at 2:00a.m.

To point three I then added that complaining against a cab driver is one thing, actually being able to come all the way here to testify in person is another matter. So, while his record may be clean, that may also be a by-product of how difficult and time consuming testifying is.

I then took the opportunity to add, that I made time for it today because the driver of that cab was callous, reckless and should not ever be allowed to drive a cab again.

Just sayin.

She thanked me for my testimony and said I was free to wait outside for the verdict.

I told her I would.

I waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited.

Oh well…if she’s thinking this long about it, it must be bad.

So I told the secretary to tell the judge I had to go.

Well, lo and behold I got a letter in the mail yesterday from the TLC with the specific finding that “complainant’s testimony was highly credible”! That’s me, that’s me!

That respondent’s behavior was against the “public interest and extremely dangerous.” That’s the douche who tried to kill me!

He got three points on his license and was fined $500…which seems like a low price for the life of one so credible. (Clareified: Highly credible!)

Oh well…maybe next time it’ll be higher!

Wait…did I say “next time”?

This entry was posted by Dawn Summers on Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 3:11 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.