All's Fare

Last Friday, the city's Dept. of Investigations announced that some unscrupulous cab drivers out there were overcharging people. This is shocking news? We were ready to dismiss the whole thing as more News of the Obvious, then we read the whole story. Undercover investigators, it seems, hailed cabs at JFK while pretending to be foreign tourists who spoke no English. Once in the cab, they'd hand the driver a note asking to be taken to some high-zoot hotel. Well, lo and behold, of the 24 cabbies secretly tested, 13 overcharged their passengers-two charging $100 or more for a $45 ride. That's when we were shocked for real. Out of 24 cabbies working out of JFK, only a little more than half screwed over rich foreign tourists? That's remarkable! And the TLC should be very proud.