D.C. Cabs: Half Pass Up Blind People with Guide Dogs

A new study by a civil rights watchdog group in Washington D.C. found that cab drivers drove past blind people with guide dogs up to 50% of the time.

According to a Washington Post article:

The Equal Rights Center, in a report released Wednesday morning, said that it conducted 30 tests this year and that in half of them, drivers passed someone with a guide dog to pick up a person who did not have a guide dog. In three of the cases in which the taxi stopped for the blind person, the driver attempted to impose a surcharge for transporting the dog, the Equal Rights Center said.

Under local and federal law, businesses, including taxis, must make reasonable accommodations to blind people and their service dogs and may not impose surcharges for transporting a service dog. But blind people in the District have complained for years that some taxi drivers flout the law.