Following is a summary of this Daily Mail article:
Since last Friday, whenever somebody gets into a yellow cab in New York City, there will be a chance that the driver won’t know any English whatsoever.
The New York Taxi Commission eliminated the requirement that taxi drivers have a knowledge of English, and tests for a taxi license are now available in several languages to accommodate non-English speakers.
The City Council sponsors of the bill argued that the requirement was a barrier to employment for potential immigrant drivers from other countries, also citing the fact that the app-based private car service Uber does not have a language requirement which has led to many yellow taxi drivers leaving to work for that company.
Also, last year the Commission also eliminated most of the geography questions from the license exam due to the drivers being able to use global positioning devices rather than having knowledge of the city.
Only 4 percent of taxi drivers are born in the United States. The largest share of drivers is 24 percent coming from Bangladesh and 10 percent coming from Pakistan.
Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, who sponsored the bill said the legislation was intended to “level the playing field” to compete with Uber for drivers. “They don’t have any language requirement, and no one has complained that they can’t communicate with them,” he said. [However he failed to note that people can have a choice of drivers when calling a cab with Uber.]
Austin Finan, a spokesman for Mayor Bill de Blasio, said that ending the English speaking requirement would not do harm to the “safe and reliable customer service” in the industry.
Also see this New York Post article about the issue.