When it's OK not to tip your cab driver

Early Sunday morning, four men hailed a cab in Manhattan and asked to go to the Bronx. The cabdriver refused, and then ran two of them over with his taxi, sending them to the hospital, according to the New York City Police Department.

Just before 4 a.m., the four men got into the cab in Midtown Manhattan, the police said.

“I told the taxi driver, to the Bronx; he lets us in, and then we go in and he says I’m only taking you two blocks,” Frank Lembo, one of the four passengers, told Eyewitness News.

The cabdriver, Mohammed Azam, 27, suggested they drive to a nearby police precinct station, Precinct 18 Midtown North on West 54th Street, to ask if he did, in fact, have to take the men to the Bronx. The police said they told him that he did, but when the men went back outside, police officials said, the driver hit two of them with his cab at the corner of West 54th Street and Eighth Avenue.

One man, Anthony Loreto, was in critical condition early Monday morning, according to Eyewitness News. The other man was listed in stable condition.

Mr. Azam was arrested and charged with one count of vehicular assault and three counts of leaving the scene of an accident, according to the Police Department.

Another passenger, Joe Hladki, told Eyewitness News that he could not understand why it happened.

“There’s no money,” he said, “nothing.”

The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission did not immediately return a call seeking comment Sunday night.

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