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Free Rides and Campaign Promises from Taxi Ray
Ray Kottner, 80, already has 19 votes in his pocket for the next presidential election and he hasn’t even formed an exploratory committee.
Kottner, better known as Taxi Ray, has not done much campaigning, either. Instead, he drives his 1982 Checker yellow cab throughout the city. He gives free rides to whoever hails him, inspiring both financial gratitude and that handful of promised votes.
“I make more money from just tips than I would charging fares,” said Kottner, who no longer has a Taxi & Limousine Commission medallion.
Kottner has been driving a cab since he came back from serving in World War II in 1946. He has been doing it for free for the last four years.
Now, at the age when most are retired, Kottner says he is looking to a possible new career. An avid follower of politics, he is a particular fan of Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R)—such a fan, in fact, that he was promoting Bloomberg’s White House prospects long before it became a minor media obsession.
For three years, his taxi top read “Bloomberg for President.” Kottner has since changed camps.
“When Bloomberg came out in the newspapers and said he didn’t want to be president, I changed the sign,” said Kottner.
Now, the sign reads “Bloomberg won’t Run, soooo… Taxi Ray for President.”
Among Kottner’s platform issues are crime prevention and alternative energy sources, particularly wind power and fuel cells.
To make New York City streets safer, Kottner would replace taxi cab drivers with young police officers.
“I say that if the 12,000 yellow taxis had armed, trained police officers, there wouldn’t be any old ladies mugged in the streets for their pocket books. Now that’s a show of force,” said Kottner.
In reducing the country’s dependence on foreign oil, Kottner would allow taxpayers to channel taxes away from government coffers and into financing alternative energy sources.
“People should be able direct their income tax to making windmills to make free electricity,” he said.
And of course, the lifelong cabbie has a solution for gas guzzling taxi cabs.
“The hybrid taxi situation is a stop gap. It’s an excuse not to do the right thing. The right thing is fuel-cell energy,” he said, calling for cabs to be outfitted with batteries which separate water and hydrogen, ultimately producing electricity.
He has a lot of ideas, and the determination to see them become reality.
“If Bloomberg won’t change the world,” Kottner promised, “then Taxi Ray will.”