“Cooperate with us!” a passerby shouted yesterday at taxi driver Carlos Santos, who works for the High Class company, reproaching him for picking up a passenger in upper Manhattan at 11 in the morning when the strike was going on.

“I’m going to the strike later,” said Santos to the passerby a little guiltily. “I’m breaking the strike to pick up a little money to at least pay for gas.”

Thousands of cab drivers met at City Hall and protested the “Taxi and Limousine Commission’s (TLC) abusive fines,” stated Fernando Mateo, president of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers.

The work stoppage called by the federation was from 9 am to 5 pm and culminated in a march to the TLC headquarters Dominican, Puerto Rican, Guinean, Haitian, African-American, Cuban, Salvadorian and Colombian drivers attended. That is just a few of the nationalities that make up the 90,000 cab drivers in the city—and some 40,000 are members of the federation.

Like many drivers, Santos dreams of retiring to the Dominican Republic within a few years. “To have a house in my country and to have fulfilled the American dream. That is my goal,” said the Santiago native.

But the way things have been going, Santos’ dream is in danger.

During the last month, police tickets and TLC fines for drivers multiplied. In addition to the regular fines, drivers received summonses from the commission to prove that they are insured. “And they have only given them 15 days for all the paperwork. Before they can prove anything they are found guilty and fined a minimum of $200. This is the only agency in the city where you have to pay a fine before seeing the judge. But the agency is the judge. This is an abuse,” said Mateo. “The majority of these taxi drivers do not even speak English.”

The demonstration received support from various city council members and political leaders. [Miguel Martínez, city council member for district 10 in upper Manhattan, also spoke against the TLC’s violations. “The TLC uses unfair tactics to generate income for the city. Drivers should have the opportunity to appeal these fines and prove that they sent the correct documents in timely manner.” He said that the TLC takes advantage of the fact that the majority of livery cab drivers do not speak English and often send payments without knowing that they have the right to appeal and a fair hearing.]

“We have to stop this ‘cash cow’ for the city. The Taxi and Limousine Commission has become a machine generating income for the government of the city at the cost of taking money away from families,” Mateo stated in front of the drivers. He calculated that the fine blitz could produce up to $8,000,000 dollars for the Bloomberg administration.

“They cannot balance the budget at the expense of all of you,” he said to the drivers, calling on them to attend the TLC hearings in front of the City Council on June 19.

At the rally there was an abundance of examples of the epidemic of absurd ticketing that threatens the Big Apple and is now reaching cab drivers.

A TLC inspector fined cabbie Agustín Robles for missing the top part of one of his door locks. Ramón Batista was fined for listening to a pirated CD while driving. “They are inventing tickets,” declared Batista.

Many drivers go around with a fistful of tickets. But the straw that broke the camel’s back was the $200 fines.

“We want them to return the money to the taxi drivers and give them more time to present their proof of insurance,” said Mateo.

Allan Fromberg, spokesperson for the TLC responds:

“The summonses to provide proof of renewed insurance are for the safety of passengers and drivers. But it is also a way of finding fraud. The same citation has been sent to yellow cab drivers, ambulance drivers, limousine and community van drivers and they have all complied without complaints. We are on the streets to impose fines on those that affect the security and development of this industry and it is not true that they are penalized much more than previously. In comparison with last year, to date, we only have 1,000 more fines, an insignificant statistic.”