Duo KOs cabbie over an $18 fare

A 65-YEAR-OLD livery cab driver was knocked unconscious by a heartless couple after they refused to pay their $18 fare for a ride to Harlem, officials said Sunday.

Humberto Taveras (photo, showing injuries) picked up the man and woman from the headquarters of New Elegante Car Service, where Taveras works, in the Soundview neighborhood of the Bronx and dropped them at 154th St. and Frederick Douglass Blvd. around 7 p.m. Friday.

The couple got out of the cab without paying their $18 fare. When confronted, the man knocked Taveras out cold, according to his union, the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers.

“The beatdown took place in front of a group of men that just stood by and watched while he got punched repeatedly by the male passenger,” said Fernando Mateo, head of the Federation of Taxi Drivers.

Before the confrontation, the male passenger (inset in surveillance footage) openly refused to pay. “I don’t pay you. I don’t got the money,” he told Taveras, the driver said Sunday. When Taveras regained consciousness, he tried to follow the couple into an apartment building he saw them enter but couldn’t get past the locked door.

The couple was buzzed in immediately and apparently knew someone in the building, according to Taveras. There have been no arrests. Mateo was frustrated there hasn’t been a better effort to figure out the connection inside.

“This is a very small building,” he said. “The police could’ve gone in the building and searched or at least knocked on doors to find out whether these kids were in there.” The cab driver refused medical attention, officials said. On Sunday, he had two black eyes and a bruise on his forehead.