NYPD says 14 rapes in cabs were reported in 2015, up from 10 in 2014
NYPD Commissioner William Bratton has encouraged women to ‘buddy up’ when hailing cabs late at night to protect themselves from assault.
Just two hours into the new year, a 25-year-old from New Jersey hailed a yellow cab in Upper Manhattan and fell asleep in the back seat.
She awoke to find the cabdriver sitting next to her, kissing her neck and reaching into her waistband, a law-enforcement official said.
“How dare you violate me?” the woman said, according to the official. The taxi driver apologized, returned to the front seat and took the woman to her destination, officials said. Police later arrested the driver, and he was charged with felony sexual abuse.
That incident, and at least one other like it since the start of 2016, come as New York Police Department officials say there is a rise in rape by strangers, with an increasing number committed in taxis and other cars-for-hire, according to police.
“Women going out to a bar or a nightclub in Manhattan, believing that they’re doing the right thing, they don’t want to drink and drive, they want to get home safe and get in a cab,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Dermot Shea said at a news conference last week. “And then they’re getting driven and passing out and waking up in a desolate area and they’re getting sexually attacked.”
Police said there was a 6% rise in reports of rapes in 2015 over 2014, an increase from 1,354 to 1,439. Reports of rapes by a stranger increased to 166 in 2015 from 117 in 2014, police said, with 14 rapes in cabs in 2015, up from 10 in 2014. This is in addition to attempted rape, touching and other lewd acts, and the statistics don’t specify whether the driver or passenger is the perpetrator.
The increase comes amid the rise in popularity of ride-hailing apps and questions about rider security. Mr. Shea, though, stressed that police are seeing the problem in all types of cars for hire, including yellow cabs.
Concerns about passenger safety grew last spring when the driver of a green borough taxi was charged with raping a 33-year-old passenger in Brooklyn. Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo proposed legislation to require panic buttons in the back seat of cars for hire.
In an interview on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer show last week, Police Commissioner William Bratton encouraged women to “buddy up” when hailing cabs late at night, to protect themselves from assault.
Ms. Cumbo bristled at the commissioner’s suggestion. “I’m a single black woman in the city of New York and I should be able to walk outside my house without a buddy,” she said.
Representatives of the for-hire car industry stressed the safeguards in place for passengers. Allan Fromberg, a spokesman for the Taxi and Limousine Commission, which licenses taxi and other for-hire drivers, including Uber drivers, said potential drivers go through a fingerprint-based criminal background check. This process, he said, allows for “ongoing 24/7, 365 monitoring of our licensees so that we are notified whenever a TLC licensee has been arrested.”
An Uber representative said technology keeps their passengers safe. Riders see a driver’s name, photo, license plate number, car model and overall rating before they get in an Uber, spokesman Matt Wing said, and every trip is GPS-tracked. This means “there is a clear record and riders can share their trip ETA, allowing friends and family to track their trip in real time,” he said.
Bhairavi Desai, president of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, advised passengers to make sure they are getting into a cab that is marked and licensed, so that it can be tracked. “It’s when you’re hailing a car that’s not a green cab or a yellow cab, that’s when that ride is off the radar,” she said.
Some women in New York said they do feel they need to exercise caution when riding alone.
The back of a cab can feel like a sanctuary, said Bunny Michael, a 33-year-old artist from Brooklyn’s Bushwick section. But, she added, “we live in New York, where you’re vulnerable everywhere. If something feels wrong, it probably is.”
Megan Lewis, a 36-year-old actor and nanny, said she never feels unsafe taking cabs alone. “The medallion number and everything is right there,” she said.
In the case of the woman assaulted early on New Year’s Day, police said she took a photo of the registration and medallion number displayed on the car’s partition. Police used that information to track down and arrest the driver in less than 24 hours.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/rise-in-sexual-assaults-reported-by-taxi-passengers-1452476904
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Taxi drivers in Gloucester have been urged to fight plans to ban private hire cabs from driving in bus lanes in the city.
Gloucestershire County Council is proposing to limit bus lane use in the county's roads to buses, hackney carriages, cyclists, emergency service vehicles and motorbikes.
But private hire cabbies who pay Gloucester City Council for the right to drive in bus lanes in the city say the move could cause more traffic congestion and cost their customers more.
The county council wants to introduce the same rules for all bus lanes in Gloucestershire as part of its draft local transport plan.
http://www.gloucestercitizen.co.uk/Private-hire-taxi-drivers-banned-using-bus-lanes/story-28489813-detail/story.html
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CARDIFF
If John Lewis did cabs...it would be like UBER.
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/news-opinion/hail-uber-taxi-app-certainly-10712252
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