Your cab driver is a spy and they've installed dashboard cameras to record suspicious activity.
Columbus, OH - Taxi drivers already serve as informal lookouts for police agencies. They drive all over Franklin County and can be the first to notice dangerous situations.
But for the first time, a Columbus cab company will formally become a “block watch on wheels” by bringing a national safety program here.
The Taxis on Patrol initiative was announced yesterday. It creates a partnership between Yellow Cab of Columbus, the Columbus Division of Police and the Franklin County sheriff’s office to fight crime where the taxis travel.
“We travel 7 million miles annually,” said Jeff Kates, company president, during the event announcing the program. “Our drivers can and do see quite a lot. … If you see something, you say something.”
Specially trained Yellow Cab drivers will report suspicious activities to police as part of the program. Cameras — similar to dashboard cameras in police cruisers — are being installed in each of Yellow Cab’s 130 vehicles to help document what happens and to protect the drivers from crime, he said. The cab company will foot the bill for the installations.
A version of Taxis on Patrol has existed since the 1970s, when a New York suburb first used cab drivers to report crimes. In late 2010, the Maryland-based Taxicab, Limousine and Paratransit Association decided to revitalize the program for nationwide use.
Robert McBride, owner of Metro Taxi and president of the Taxicab, Limousine & Paratransit Association, a transportation-industry trade group, plans to encourage TLPA operators to initiate the Taxis on Patrol program in their cities at the group's spring convention next week in Chicago.
As part of the program, drivers learn to provide real-time reporting to police of crimes in progress, auto accidents and other emergencies. Metro Taxi, Yellow Cab, Freedom Cab and Union Taxi drivers are all part of the program.
McBride kick-started the program in Denver after being elected to the TLPA presidency last year. When he took office, he told the association's members that a Taxis on Patrol program was among his priorities.
Police Lt. Steve Addison, who oversees Taxis on Patrol for the department, said he expects law enforcement agencies throughout the country to embrace TOPs, which gives police extra eyes and ears on the street.
Since 2011, cities in Colorado, Chicago, Missouri, Arkansas and Mississippi — as well as Toledo — have announced the creation of local Taxis on Patrol.
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/12/05/cab-drivers-go-on-patrol.html
http://www.gazette.com/articles/program-116019-national-crime.html
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/video/taxis-on-patrol-helping-police-fight-crime/1920345097001