I am not sure if the cab drivers should just operate as a new company on their own. What would stop others from using their own cars and joining the fleet, and becoming illegal cabs?

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I too was a taxi driver, and my drive time was regulated based upon my ability to pay my lease. So there is a way that the cab companies in Denver can control the amount of driving hours a taxi driver gets each week. But then, the drivers would get any hours by no fault of their own.

Yellow and Metro are allowed to operate nearly 800 cabs. Both companies have admitted they are unable to control the number of hours their drivers are on the road. If each cab operates for only 2 hours over the allowable limit each day--a conservative assumption given the lease rates of $700 to $900/week--then the total is 1,600 illegal hours per day. Mile High Cab is only seeking 150 drivers times 10 hours per day. 1,500 hours. There's easily room for that if the illegal hours of Yellow and Metro are eliminated.

So how much did Yellow Cab take off your lease to publish this response? If I heard through the grapevine correctly, you are a family member of one of Yellow Cab's call center employees. You obviously don't know what goes on at the airport because if you did you would know that drivers don't sit 10 hours for 2 trips. I'm also sure that you yourself have complained about paying too much money. Maybe the PUC should look into your hours to see if you've gone over your "80 in 8". If you haven't then someone should look into to implied relationship you have with the call center to see if you are getting special treatment.

I am a current cab driver and what this article fails to realize is that if a driver is sitting at DIA for 10 hours a day waiting on fares, he is still counted as working hours even though he might be sitting inside the holding lot driver room watching TV or taking a nap inside his vehicle. He could spend one hour of actual driving time but the nine hours of waiting, watching tv, sleeping and talking to his friends and it will still count as working. The problem is not the lease fees the companies charge (it is pretty cheap as compared to other cities I have worked in), the problem is the lazy drivers who pay the fees and then go sit out at the airport for 10 hours a day and only getting two trips out of the deal. What is worse is the drivers who go sit downtown and turn down short trips because they are not going to the airport and then blame the companies that they are not making any money. It is their own personal choice to go out there and when they do not make any money because of the long wait’s they just blame the companies high lease rates. Get away from downtown and the airport and go pick up fares! I am tired of these select guys who only want the airport runs making the hard working guys like myself look bad!!!