How to Hack it in New York City II

As a Professional Kidnapper, I am often asked, "Can I go now, please??" And the answer is, "It depends."

Professional kidnapping offers all the benefits of working in the chief investment office of a major bank - the long hours, the constant screaming, the second-hand chloroform fumes... (But without some of the modern conveniences, such as nose-height toilet seats). However it wasn't the life for me and I decided to get a hack license.

The Taxi Schools

Before you can sit for the TLC exam, you're required to go through classroom training. There are only four schools accredited by the TLC.

The oldest of the four is the Master Cabbie Taxi Academy located right outside the Court Square G train stop. I know little about it except for anecdotes that suggest that it is well-regarded. It was started by a guy called Terence ("Terry") Butler Gelber who calls himself "The Hack Poet" and one of his poems is in the Museum of the City of New York. He keeps a couple of blogs that Google will find for you.

The second is the Kingsborough Community College, all the way out in Manhattan Beach whose website appears to have imploded at the time of writing this. I know nothing about it apart from the fact that it seems fairly inaccessible.

The third is H.A.N.A.C. This is the first school I tried when I was looking for classes. I had just got my temporary hack license and I needed someplace that offered weekend classes. As far as I could tell this was the only one that offered classes outside of normal work hours. It's right across the street from the TLC office.

I went there on a Friday afternoon, which is the also day that the TLC Exam is held every week. It was as if I'd crossed an event horizon. Clusters of men were trickling out of the examination, all speaking Bengali and gesturing at each other. Most of them seem to have forgotten that they still had unlit cigarettes between their fingers (or maybe, with all the gesturing going on, they were just afraid of setting each others' noses on fire).

I walked up to the counter where an oddly out-of-place Latina interrupted her conversation with Emiliano Zapata to ask for my credit card. I asked her for the class schedule. She tried to explain to me that all I had to do was give her a credit card and she would give me a training manual in return. I told her that I didn't need the manual yet and could she please tell me what classes I could sign up for on weekends. She pulled out a class calendar and used a yellow highlighter to highlight all thirty days of classes for the month, then asked if she could have my credit card. I told her I needed a little more time to go through the schedule. Once she realised that I wasn't going to give her my credit card, she lost interest in me and returned to her conversation with Zapata.

I walked out of there a little disappointed. It worries me when people want your money before they answer questions. It tends to happen when they know you're not going to like what they tell you and you're not getting a refund. At any rate I was resigned to it - I'd just have to spend a couple of hours talking to them to figure out all the ways they could screw me. I just wasn't in the mood for it today. Besides, I didn't stand a chance against Zapata's handlebar.

I had to walk past La Guardia Community College to get to my subway stop. The college is named for Fiorello La Guardia, who once refused to get off a plane in Newark, New Jersey, because his ticket said "New York" (at the time Newark was the only commercial airport serving New York City). By the time he left public office, New York had two commercial airports. The college buildings lack the stature and the energy that he managed to pack into a five-foot frame.

La Guardia Community College is also the fourth school accredited by the TLC. I had checked out their website and it didn't look like they offered weekend classes, but after my experience at H.A.N.A.C., I figured I'd stop in anyway.

I'm glad I did.

The Taxi programme is essentially run by a pair of the nicest women you'll ever meet. They're knowledgable, helpful and efficient to the point of being curt. Officially, the programme is run by a guy named Andrew Vollo.  His cachet appears to be a number of magazine and newspaper articles about him that he has kindly made available to the public on the school's website. But it's Chantel and (Sha)Mika who are in charge and they clearly enjoy the job.

The taxi school offices (at La Guardia) are open every day of the week, including Sunday. Except that on Sundays the office and the classes move from building 'B' to building 'M' a block away.

How the Cabbie Classes at the La Guardia Community College Work

When I walked in on Friday afternoon, Mika was at the desk. I asked her about the classes and this is how she explained it to me (while simultaneously updating a spreadsheet on the computer and helping a half-dozen other people).

There are two courses the TLC recognizes. You can choose between the 80-hour class or the 24-hour class. The 80-hour class spans two weeks and is said to improve your chances of passing the test. The 24-hour class is a 3-day course and covers the minimum requirements for passing the test. 

Course pricing is fixed by the TLC (but I have seen other schools charge significantly higher prices). The 80-hour course costs $325 and the 24-hour course costs $175. La Guardia actually charges you $5 less than the price set by the TLC for the 24-hour course (you'll see why in a minute).

Any time you spend $300, The La Guardia Taxi School lets you take as many classes as you please for whatever time is left on your temporary hack license at no extra charge. If you paid for the 24-hour class and you decide to sign up for four more classes at $45 each (to take you past $300), you don't pay for any additional classes. (This is when the $5 discount works against you. If they charged you the full $175, it would only take 3 classes to get you to $300 but the $5 discount leaves you exactly $5 short).

So, if you pay for the 80-hour class, you also get free access to classes such as 'English for Taxi Drivers' and 'Outer Borough Geography' which improve your chances of passing the test, specially if you're a recent immigrant. You can also repeat any of the classes as many times as you like. Naturally, the unlimited deal only works within the 90-day period that your temporary hack license is valid. 

If you pay for the 24-hour course, like I did, you have to take 3 different eight-hour classes - 

• The Geography class is the most important. This covers map reading, locations of commonly requested destinations, water crossings, traffic restrictions amongst other things. This is where  the bulk of your questions come from on the test.
• The Rules and Regulations class covers TLC and New York City traffic rules
• The Driver/Passenger Relations persuades you not to be an asshole

It isn't sufficient that you spend 24 hours in class. You have to spend 8 hours in each of the classes above. If you accidentally repeat one of the classes, you haven't fulfilled your training requirements and you will have to pay extra for the missed class. 

Both courses are offered sequentially on weekdays. You can do either course in one fell swoop or over several weeks. Make sure you leave at least a couple of weeks at the end of the 90 days in case you have to take the TLC exam twice. 

Only the 24-hour class is offered on weekends and classes are rotated. So if you can only do classes on a Saturday, it would take you three consecutive Saturdays to complete your training requirements (similarly, Sundays). A class is never offered twice on the same weekend, so you could do two of the classes on one weekend and wait for the remaining one to roll around on another weekend.

They take attendance at the beginning of the class and at the end of the class. If you skip out of a class early, you fail your requirement but they won't credit you the fee for it. 

How the TLC Exam Works

You will also be charged a $25 exam fee when you sign up for class. This is for your first exam. They'll also ask you to pick an exam date, but you can change that provided you give them sufficient notice.

The exam is always held every week on Friday mornings (except during public holidays). You take the exam at the school where you complete your training requirements. 

At La Guardia, they offer a mock test on alternate Thursdays. If you sign up for the mock test and fail to show up for the actual exam, they don't hold it against you and your $25 is still good for another date. If you don't take the mock test and fail to show up for the exam, it is treated as your first attempt (you need to cancel by the Wednesday before the test if you can't make it). There are two mock tests, one for English proficiency and the other for Geography. They cost $20 each and should help you determine if you're ready for the test. One of the teachers will even analyse it for you and tell you where you need to focus your energies.

Your exam is a two-parter. The first half is the English proficiency and the second half is mostly Geography, with some Rules and Regulations thrown in. All your answers need to be written or marked with a lead pencil.

 The English proficiency test comprises of 30 questions divided into four sections that you have to complete in 45 minutes. Unfortunately I've forgotten some of the details (as the one brain cell I have struggles with how to get passengers from Madison and 42nd to 40th and Fifth), but it's a combination of reading/comprehension and listening skills.

There's one section where you read a paragraph and answer multiple choice questions, another where an audio recording comes on and you have to write out the addresses you hear. They're quite Nazi about this section and will subtract marks for missing the dot on an abbreviation or writing Str. instead of St. If in doubt spell the whole word out. Also, 'Great Jones Street' is right, 'Great Joan Street' is wrong - so you need to be somewhat familiar with street names in the five Burroughs.

Then there's a section where you hear a conversation between two people on the audio recording and you have to answer multiple choice questions about the conversation. Such as what time it was, where the passenger on the recording asked to be taken, etc. All the audio recordings are repeated once (so you hear each recording twice) and you only have the 5-second pauses in-between the recordings to answer the questions. Finally, you read a paragraph and write out your answers to 5 questions.

You have to get 21 questions right to pass the English section. If you get all 30 right, the extra marks don't count towards the next section. If you fail the English section and pass the Geography test, you still fail the whole exam and you have to take both sections again. However, if you pass the English section and fail the Geography, you only have to repeat the Geography section the second time round.

The second section has 50 questions and is broken down into two parts as well. 

The first 10 questions are multiple-choice, open book, map-reading questions and you are given a map to figure them out (you aren't allowed to bring your own map to the test). You are also given an address finder, which is a sheet with calculations on how to locate exact addresses on the Avenues (more about this later). You have 45 minutes to complete this section and then they take your map away and you're on your own.

You have 75 minutes to complete the remaining 40 multiple-choice questions. Of these, around 15 questions cover Rules and Regulations and 25 cover Geography. Typically, you get 16-17 questions about Manhattan and about 8-9 questions about the outer Burroughs. 

They ask you to show up for the exam at 9:00 am but they tell you take the day off as the actual start time can vary by several hours and you may well end up finishing at 4:00 pm (or even later).