A legal question regarding making exact change

Factual Questions
21

I would have just given him the ten. He would have “found” change soon enough after that.

I really don’t like cab drivers because every time I take a cab they try to rip me off. That includes the cabbies who’ve done the “Did I say $15 for the whole trip, no I meant $15 from each of you,” the “No no, the highway really is the fastest way to get there (does 1500 N. Charles St. to 2900 N. Charles St. sound like it requires ten minutes on the highway?),” and the random 30 cent to $5 surcharge guys. Oh, and the dispatchers who suddenly don’t speak English anymore when I call to complain.

Somehow cabbies always think I’m a stupid tourist or there’s the “backpack surcharge” (if you look like a student of the expensive university nearby, you get charged extra for an awful lot in this neighborhood. Has no one ever heard of financial aid?) Screw it, I know the prices of pretty much any cab trip I take in this city, and when I hear, “Oh, that will be $20,” for what should be a $5 ride, I just hand them the $5 and forget about the tip I was going to give them.

Sorry for the rant, I’m still bitter about the $48, mile and a half cab ride that two friends and I got ripped off on freshman year.

22

Oops, forgot I was in General Questions and not the IMHO.

23

There’s a much more important difference between taxi service and pizza delivery than the transaction being completed but for payment–taxis are licensed and regulated, pizza parlors are not. My guess is every taxi commission has regulations dealing with this issue, and I would bet that most of them are along the lines of the one from NYC quoted above by lucwarm.

24

If you tell the guy that you have a twenty for a fourteen dollar fare and ask him if he has three bucks change so you can give him a three buck tip, you will find he has it.

25

I don’t know the law, but I’ll throw in my legally useless opinion of what it probably is.

It strikes me that for general business, the law should be simple: one party provides a product or service, and the other provides payment (cash in this instance). If the second party can’t pay because they don’t have it, legally they are not entitled to the product/service. If they’ve already absorbed the service (as in the case where a taxi ride has already been provided), then they are in debt and must find a way to make payment. They are not entitled to a free or reduced cost service just because they are unable to pay.

A good businessman in the position of the first party will have correct change, but that wasn’t asked.

26

A vendor in a store who refused to accept your current, for whatever reason, is within the scope of the law because no debt exists until the transaction occurs. (Bringing the product to the counter doesn’t create a debt because it doesn’t make the product yours). A taxi driver who takes you somewhere is in a somewhat different situation because a debt now exists, and the currency you offer is “legal tender for all debts, public or private”. I know that the taxi driver may not refuse currency and still pursue the debt–for example, if you offered a handful of Sackies and $2 bills and the driver were to demand more conventional currency instead, you could declare that you have satisfied the debt by offering payment which was refused.

I’m not sure that the taxi driver is obligated to make change, though. Such an obligation could be awfully open-ended, at least in theory: $10,000 bills are still legal tender. In practice, nothing larger than $100 is in circulation, but it would be inconvenient to need to have on hand the cash necessary to make change for a hundred to pay for a <$10 cab ride.

But I doubt that the passenger in such a circumstance can be legally forced to turn over a sum greater than the debt due to the cabbie’s inability to make change. The debt would remain, and arrangements would have to be made to attend to its satisfaction.

(IANAL)

27

Taxi service is regulated in most if not all areas. One reason for this is that out-of-towners often avail themselves of the service; it certainly isn’t good for the business community if everyone in the rest of the country (and world) says “Boy, they sure screw you in Smithville.”

You’ve seen the regulations regarding this in NYC. I said similar regulations most likely apply in every city. Here’s DC’s:

So, in DC, the obligation is on the driver to inform the passenger of his capabilities to make change; the passenger can either stop on his way without being charged (which I think I saw was a 30¢ charge per stop, although it appears the meter still runs), and if the passenger realizes at his destination that he doesn’t have appropriate change and the cabbie doesn’t either, he’s charged 50¢.

This isn’t rocket science, and extended analogies with pizza delivery or (frankly, virtually any) other commercial businesses are misguided since taxi service is regulated independently of any other business.

28

I would have asked how much the trip would cost beforehand…
Then I would have made sure the taxi driver had change…
The bottom line is that you owe the driver money and it’s up to you to pay him exactly what you owe…

29

Have you read any of this thread, TheRob?

30

I deliver Chinese food, and the only time I’m guaranteed to have change is when the customer says “I need change for $xx” on the phone. They were given a price when they placed their order, and they had 45 minutes to come up with that amount.

31

Just one last point from a cabbie’s perspective. I have no doubt that there are a few loathsome feculant low lifes driving taxies in this nation who would use any pretext to extort more than their fair (or fare) share from those who rely on their services. After all, who would ever expect the average holder of a hack license to have a stronger moral code than the average holder of public office. Be that as it may, and in reference to my previous post in this thread let me say the following:

There is a very good reason for cab drivers to **not ** carry a sizable amount of cash with them. I don’t have the cite available but to the best of my understanding the only job in American that promises you a greater likelihood of staring down the wrong end of a hand gun than driveing cab is being a late night convenience store clerk. And even then the demographics vary.

It’s sad to say but there are people out there who view us as nothing but ATM machines that come when you call them. I could tell you of my own experiences with being robed, or mention things like the young lady holding what appeared to be a small baby wrapped in a blanket that turned out to be a plastic doll and a sawed off shot gun (happened to a good friend of mine).

And yes, there have been times that I have had change on me and, in light of circumstances, I denied it. If you give me the wrong vibe when you ask if I can break a $50 of course I’ll tell you no. But in that case, as with any other similar case, I will offer to find change on route.

So yes I, as a contentious and courteous transportation professional, will always try to resolve our transaction to our mutual satisfaction. And should a cabbie ever try to extort extra money from you on any suspicious pretext, give them freaking hell for it. But please do all you can to provide payment in the smallest denomination possible, or at the least ask us if we can break a $20 or $50 while there’s opportunity to preempt any misunderstanding. Thank you, and have a nice day.

32

Well, this has degenerated into an IMHO discussion, so here’s my “change from a dollar for a ninety-eight cent fare”:

Excerpted quotation:

Your point about not carrying a sizable amount of cash is understandable and reasonable, plus, not uncommon in other circumstances, particularly with convenience stores and delivery services (e.g. “driver carries no more than X dollars in cash” or “clerk cannot change bill greater than X dollars”). I would say for your typical fare that it’s an unreasonable expectation for a cabbie to have to break a hundred or even a fifty (although it would be nice if cabs did post that they will not make change for certain bills).

HOWEVER, I would also say that it’s perfectly reasonable to expect that change from a twenty be made, and I’m doubtful that it would be inconvenient or hazardous for a cab driver to have to carry a number of small bills for that purpose.

I’ll conclude with a supplementary legal question: if a cab driver lies about her/his ability to make change for the purpose of obtaining a larger tip, is that fraud and/or larceny by deceit?

33

I have no facts to offer this debate. I do, however, have an opinion.

If cab drivers are not obligated to make change, then why would they ever offer change? If you can charge $20 for a $15 trip, why charge $15?

The obligation should be on the cab driver to carry change, to a point. Personally, I would expect to see cab drivers required to advertise that they can make change to, say, $20, and if they aren’t able to cover it, then the customer should get a discount. Charging extra for the service because the driver doesn’t have change doesn’t make sense, especially as you pay for a service you’ve already received.

I live in Australia. We have a higher minimum wage, therefore we don’t need to tip. Some people are starting to put out tip jars due to the influence of American culture, but I don’t tip because that would be double-dipping. Their wages are factored into their prices.

I frequently catch taxis around my town. They all have a clear and easy to read trip meter that the passenger can see from anywhere in the car. They all have a list of rights and obligations posted in plain view that states that the driver must take the most direct and practical route unless another is specified. The list also tells you how much you are to be charged for each service (hiring fee, per kilometre fee, late night surcharge, etc). I have never had a cab driver struggle to produce change for me. In fact, many of the local cab drivers will pause the meter when it reaches an even dollar figure, because that’s the kind of guys they are. In return, I never pay them with large bills, and I try to include as much loose change as possible - they appreciate this.

If I had a pizza delivery man show up with a $14.55 pizza, and only a $5 note for change, I would refuse the pizza, call his boss and complain, and change pizza parlours. How dare you assume I should tip you 45 cents. When I get home delivery, I’m asked what denomination I’ll pay with over the phone and the delivery driver has the correct amount of change taped to the box when he arrives. In the rare cases that I haven’t been asked first and the driver doesn’t have the right change, I’ve been given a discount rather than overcharged. The only delivery person I’ve ever seen try to get a tip by carrying the wrong change is the grotty guy from one of the local fish and chip shops. We made him come up with the right change - after all, the fish and chip shops charge a home delivery fee! He’s slow, which is weird because he drives like a maniac, his car is so loud it wakes the whole neighbourhood and he often brings his weird friends along - he’s not exactly a tipping candidate. We changed fish and chip shops after the tip incident.