Lost Something in a Taxi? Lose Hope for Recovering It
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New Yorkers who leave house keys, cell phones, wallets, and other valuables in taxis can consider them as good as gone in most cases, an investigation by a City Council member shows.
Council Member Gale Brewer of the Upper West Side, a frequent taxi rider who has a tendency to leave things behind, said that unless riders have a receipt from a taxi or its medallion number, it is nearly impossible to track down missing items. Riders must navigate a difficult maze of phone calls before they can hope to fine their missing item, the investigation found.
Without a receipt, if “you leave your BlackBerry, your camera, as I have done, your keys, as I have done, your address book, as a friend of mine has done, you are really in tough shape,” she said.
There is no electronic database of lost items, so riders must call each of the city’s eight police precincts for lost property to hunt down their belongings. Ms. Brewer’s investigation found that lost items sometimes aren’t brought into precincts, but instead are left with taxi garage managers.
The chairman of the Taxi and Limousine Commission, Matthew Daus, tried to downplay the report yesterday, saying it was the first time in the last 10 years he’s heard someone complain about the system.
He said the commission’s lost and found system “could be made better,” but noted that by the beginning of 2008, when every taxi is slated to have a Global Positioning System device, it will be easier to find lost items.
The new technology will allow officials to search a GPS database to find which taxis were in certain areas at the same time and place the rider who lost an item was dropped off. The flagged taxis would then be sent a text message about the lost item.
“It will be quicker and easier to get your property back,” he said. A recent taxi ride during which Ms. Brewer found a set of keys prompted her to investigate the system, she said. When she asked the taxi driver what they should do with them, she said he held up a stash of keys from other riders. He hadn’t turned them in.
