It's a socialist vision. It
It's a socialist vision. It is not legal from what I know about the law. The USDOT doesn't say you must use Bendix brakes, they don't even specify disc vs shoe brakes. The USDOT specifies performance standards only. The car has to be able to stop fast enough.
The NYC TLC has way overstepped here. They have been looking for some car maker to 'get in bed with them' for decades. If I owned medallions I'd challenge any rejection of... say my Infinti, BMW or Benz Crossover NYC taxi at cab inspection time - in court.
The TLC has a lot to learn about regulating, if they want to get in compliance with federal standards.
I keep reading about how this is the first NYC taxi with a partition to ever get crash tested. If the results were good... I'm sure we'd be hearing about it. Why the sudden interest in federal crashworthiness? These NYC cabs, with their illegal partitions, have been crash testing with real live subjects for 43 years now. The results have been disastrous according to Dr.'s G. Sbordone, G. Doughlin, G. Husk, J. Sherman, A. Konisar, S. Blaugrund, M. Camins, P. Lorenc, K. Sturmann, M. Melrose... all Boston or NYC trauma surgeons, plastic surgeons, chiropracters, and neurosurgeons who have treated taxi partition impact victims for years. I have been ringing the alarm about the lack of compliance in NYC and Boston taxi partition design for decades.
Simply get rid of the partition and use the cars people like. Drivers get shot just as easily with a partition as without. With partitions now we get to see low speed fatal collisions because of partition impact, too. Get rid of the partition. It isn't in compliance with federal standards anyway. Years of crash testing with real human occupants has taught the doctors what a partition is most likely to do.