58-year-old Roy Kim of Queens became the sixth driver in new York, who committed suicide due to financial difficulties over the past year.
November 5, a man was found hanging from a belt in his apartment. According to friends, after last year Kim bought her the locket, he is mired in debt and had to pay about $500 thousand.
«For a time he earned money, but then he slowly descended lower and lower. All the drivers are really struggling,» said the NY Post cabby young Lee, who became friends with Kim.
The Executive Director of the Union of taxi drivers Bhairavi Desai issued a statement which said that «friends of Roy Kim was described as hardworking, quiet and decent» person.
«Roy worked six days a week up to 14 hours a day. Friends in his community of taxi drivers-Koreans invited him to dinner to celebrate the acquisition of the medallion in 2017,» — said Desai.
He urged banks and lenders to cooperate with the city and charitable organizations to help taxi drivers cope with financial difficulties.
«I think we have not had any crisis in history, similar to that we see today,» said Desai.
Over the past few years the yellow cab drivers barely make ends meet. Many associate this trend with the uncontrolled increase in the number of companies like Uber and Lyft.
In August, the city Council of new York froze the issuance of licenses for driving a taxi for a year, but the streets are already more than 100 thousand drivers with medallions (in 2015, they were 63 thousand). In addition, the cost of this metal plate, necessary for the management of yellow cab, has fallen from $1 million to $200 million, which led to the bankruptcy of the owners of the medallions.
Kim is the fourth driver and the eighth driver overall, who committed suicide in November last year. Here are the names of all the victims:
- In October 2018 driver from Uber Fausto Luna jumped in front of a train.
- In June 2018, 59-year-old taxi driver Abdul Saleh hung herself with a cord in his apartment in Brooklyn.
- In may 2018, another driver of the yellow taxi Yu Mein «Kenny» Chow jumped into the East river.
- In March 2018, 65-year-old Nicanor Ochisor hanged himself in his garage in Queens.
- In February 2018 61-year-old Douglas Shifter was shot with gun near city hall.
- In December 2017, the 57-year-old Danilo Corporan Castillo wrote a farewell suicide note on the back of the summons, and then jumped out of the window of his apartment in Manhattan.
- In November 2017 hanged the driver, Alfredo Perez.
The news about Roy Kim’s suicide came on the same day, when the city Council passed a bill to establish a Commission that will review the falling prices of medallions and come up with a way to help drivers in difficulty.
