The Taxi and Limousine Commission voted Monday to create a new series of rules to stop cabbies from working long hours, despite outcry from drivers who say they are perfectly capable of figuring out when they are tired.
The rules will prohibit hacks from picking up passengers for more than 12 hours in a 24-hour period. Cabbies also will not be able to work more than 72 hours in a seven-day period.
The agency will continue to explore the best ways to calculate driving hours and make changes in the future if needed, said commission chief Meera Joshi.
Cabbies protested the new rule set, saying it will cost them even more in a system already overburdened by regulations.
Last year, The Post shined a light on lax TLC rules that essentially allow cabbies to work as long as they want, after a taxi driver who had been behind the wheel for 16 hours straight crashed into a grandmother on the Upper West Side, killing her.
The agency admitted that its rules were so loose that it had not hit even one driver with the $25 fine in the 26 years that it has been on the books.