Another debt-burdened New York City cabbie has committed suicide — the eighth for-hire driver to kill himself in the past year, Taxi and Limousine Commission officials confirmed on Wednesday.
Roy Kim, 58, of Bayside, Queens, hanged himself with a belt in his home on Nov. 5, according to the city’s medical examiner’s office. There was no immediate sign of a suicide note.
Kim, who had just purchased his taxi medallion last year, was more than $500,000 in debt from the deal and struggling to stay afloat, say friends.
“He was in a lot of debt from that,” said fellow driver Young Lee, who made friends with Kim while picking up fares from airports. “For a while he was making money but then it just went slowly down and down and down. All drivers are really struggling.”
For-hire drivers have been in a freefall for the past few years, and many blame the epidemic on the unchecked growth of ride-share companies such as Uber and Lyft. The city enacted regulations this summer, but some critics called them too little too late.
TLC Commissioner Meera Joshi offered condolences to Kim’s friends and family and promised to look for more ways to help anguished drivers.
“This tragedy underscores the importance of finding new ways for government, the industry and lenders to work in unity to address the financial challenges that are weighing so heavily on our licensees,” she said. “Modifying, restructuring and lowering loans would go a long way in providing relief and keeping taxi services available to New Yorkers for years to come.”
Taxi driver advocates say the city and TLC need to do more to help.
“Owner-drivers have suffered a deep and vicious slide from the middle class into crushing poverty, in a just a few short years,” said NY Taxi Workers Alliance Executive Director Bhairavi Desai. “This crisis can be fixed. The struggle for owner-drivers is reminiscent of the 2008 housing crisis. In that crisis, the industry, government, advocates, and philanthropy came to the table to find solutions. Now, banks and lenders need to work with the city and philanthropy to write off 20 percent of outstanding debts, lower interest rates, and restructure contracts so that no owner-driver has to lose more than 20 percent of their monthly income to the mortgage.”
Kim is the fourth cabbie and eighth driver overall to commit suicide since November of last year.
In October, Uber driver Fausto Luna jumped in front of an oncoming A train.
In June, cash-strapped yellow cabbie Abdul Saleh, 59, hanged himself in his Brooklyn apartment.
In May, another yellow cab driver Yu Mein “Kenny” Chow flung himself in the East River off the Upper East Side.
In March, Nicanor Ochisor, 65 — another yellow cabbie — hanged himself in his garage in Maspeth, Queens.
Corporate black car driver Douglas Schifter, 61, killed himself with a shotgun outside City Hall on Feb. 5.
In December, livery hack Danilo Corporan Castillo, 57, wrote a suicide note on the back of a summons he received — and then jumped out the window of his Manhattan apartment.
And in November, livery driver Alfredo Perez hanged himself.
The news of the suicide comes on the same day that the city council passed a bill introduced by council member Ydanis Rodriguez that will create a commission to look at falling taxi medallion values and come up with ways to help struggling drivers.