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The Taxi & Limousine Commission is looking for new ways to "enhance the technology systems" in cabs, and the agency has a long list of ideas they've been batting around at TLC HQ in recent months. Unfortunately, most of them are pretty stupid—and none of them address the very minor technological glitch that leads cabs to spontaneously blow up from time to time—so don't expect commuting around town to improve much in the near future.

Okay, not all the ideas are terrible. The TLC has been looking into introducting a "Taxicard," for example, a Metrocard-like piece of plastic that could be used to pay for rides. It isn't clear why such a thing would be needed now that cabs now accept credit cards, but it's certainly better than one of the other items on their "idea list," some sort of apparatus that would prevent drivers from using their cell phones while they drive.

Sure, it would be lovely to have drivers forcibly restrained from shouting in Pashtu while also disobeying New York City traffic laws, but the notion that this cell phone blocker would only work in the front of the cab and not in the backseat? Ha! Obviously, this is a devious plot to prevent passengers from using their phones, too, making them total hostages of the ads flickering across those annoying screens in the backseat—screens that, rather suspiciously, don't always turn off when you press the "off" button.

Fortunately, yet another idea on the list is to give passengers the ability to submit complaints to the agency via the same screens, so the TLC can look forward to about 10,000 angry messages an hour when—and if—any of this new technology is ever introduced.

TLC mulls cell-phone blockers to keep drivers from using mobile phones [NYDN]
TLC CONSIDERING CAB-FARE CARDS [NYP]