The safest cabbie in the city isn’t a yellow taxi or Uber driver — he works for a Bronx livery car service.
Angel Leger, 51, has driven an average of 145 miles a day the past five years without a traffic or safety violation, the Taxi and Limousine Commission said Thursday . It is the most mileage of any hack with a spotless record — making him the safest out of the 135,000 drivers the TLC licenses.
Leger drives for Kiss Car Service, based in the Bronx near Fordham University.
“It’s our responsibility to set the standard for drivers around us,” he said. “Going home to our family, and helping other people come home to their family is the best reason I can think of.”
The TLC and other city officials honored 256 drivers who had perfect safety records the past five years. They are on the agency’s honor roll, which was created as part of Vision Zero, the mayor’s plan to end traffic deaths.
Twelve Uber drivers made the honor roll. They work for five of the app company’s bases, including Unter, Hinter and Schmecken.
Almost 150 of those recognized were black or livery car drivers, and 106 were yellow cabbies. Seven are commuter van drivers, and 30 were green taxi drivers.
Hacks who use the outer-borough cabs can have either a yellow cab or for-hire vehicle license.
The TLC also recognized 10 drivers who gave more than 4,500 trips to passengers in wheelchairs.
“Thank you very much from the bottom of my heart,” said one cab passenger, Ronnie Raymond, who uses a wheelchair, during the ceremony. “It’s being able to take a yellow taxi that makes it possible for me to have a useful and meaningful life.”
Amy Cohen, a Brooklyn mom in the group Families for Safe Streets, urged the drivers to push other cabbies to be as safe as they are.
“Please urge all your colleagues to drive like you do,” she said. “Demand that commercial drivers be held to a higher standard. Make driving like a New Yorker mean something much different than it means today.”
