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Editor: 

Berkeley seniors enjoy a wonderful taxi scrip program. But this business of the insensitive drivers has been euphemised too long. Twenty-five dollars’ worth of so- called sensitivity training does not deal with or even acknowledge the nitty gritty of sexism-ageism.     

Why don’t we hear more complaints from men? Because most seniors are women; most low-income seniors are women; and most seniors relying on taxis are women.   

Time and again testimony at senior center meetings re taxi service-related problems have bottom-lined the drivers’ sexist-agist practices. The fact that many of the drivers are perpetuating traditions they have enjoyed abroad does not mitigate the problem. 

Helen Wheeler 

Berkeley