| Readers may remember
the March 'shock' issue of Call Sign, which featured the seemingly more
prevalent incidents of violence towards London's licensed taxi drivers. In
that particular issue, there were three cases of violence aimed at
Dial-a-Cab drivers and Call Sign spoke to the drivers concerned. One
involved an elderly driver being beaten up by five youths, while another
involved a DaC driver being held at gunpoint and a third who was robbed
with a knife-wielding attacker. The issue sent shock waves throughout the
trade and indeed the world via Call Sign's Internet edition when James
L.Szekely Senior, the Director of the International Taxi Drivers Safety
Council based in Huntington, West Virginia, came in and offered his advice
to the London PCO that they should 'pass' the use of video cameras in
taxis. Two months later and the PCO did indeed pass the usage of cameras,
provided they came up to the criteria that Penton Street set. Since then,
several new products have been announced for possible 'passing'. Now Call Sign has received information from a company called Vetatech who are currently testing out a video system in Bolton, Lancs. Their product - Techsecure - has been undergoing rigorous research and |
Violence in the Cab Place? Try Vetatech... |
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 Stan Carter after being attacked by five youths development for the past 18 months. It is claimed to be a unique
monitoring system for taxis that utilises the latest technology to both
deter and prevent violent crimes against drivers. |
the vehicle if necessary. The monitoring station will also have the
ability to listen in on the activities within the cab with still
photographs continuously being recorded and stored. Should an attack
actually take place, the evidence recorded can also be used in court as it
is watermarked, date and time stamped and encrypted." The pilot scheme is being part-funded - and supported 100% - by the Greater Manchester Police force and the Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council. The pilot scheme will be carried out on 10 taxis in the Bolton area for a period of four to six weeks. Research has shown that taxi drivers have up to 15 times the average exposure to occupational violence, with this statistic effectively highlighted by the murder of 24 cab drivers in just nine years in the UK. Bill O'Brien concluded: "The whole point of this system is to prevent a serious crime from taking place - if we can achieve even a small reduction in crimes of this nature, the project in my opinion, will have been a huge success." |
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Working Around the House We have been having various work done in our kitchen and garden recently and I'm pleased with the end results which took quite a bit of organising and preparation by me, making sure it got done properly. As a result of this, DaCman Terry has recently accused me of being just like a Site agent. I was a little put out to hear this and totally disagree. Anyway I'd better move on now, I have got to go snag the kitchen as the boys are waiting to go home and these safety boots and hard hat are killing me, hee, hee...! We were also having some new lino fitted in the kitchen and when the man turned up to lay it, he informed me that I had ordered the wrong size and that it has been measured incorrectly. After checking the measurements that DaCman gave me after measuring the kitchen, it was clear he had in fact measured it wrongly. At that moment, Terry was at our local college taking an exam for his Taxi maintenance course. When he came back, I told him that because he'd measured the lino wrongly, we had to have a piece put in it which I didn't really want! He denied measuring it incorrectly. Rather than start a row, I went on to ask him how he had got on |
in his exam... "Yeah," he says frowning, "Ok, I think, apart from the mathematical part, I don't think I got that right...!" Oh! but he never measured the kitchen wrong did he! GLAD I GOT THAT OFF MY CHEST...! Call Sign Letter Leigh Briden |
