This makes me sick. Before I found this article, I heard about this from a cab driver this morning–a friend of the victim (and of mine as well).
In short, a passenger in a cab early in the morning didn’t want to pay the fare of–get this–seven dollars, and so stabbed and killed the driver. I’m not really sure how police ascertained the details of this, but for whatever reason, even if the fare was $700, it is not cool to kill someone over it.
I hope they catch that sick bastard and give him all kinds of what for. And I don’t envy my friend the driver for having to face the victim’s family.
There was a rash of cabbie killings here in Minneapolis a few years back, and now a large majority of the cabs here have cameras in them. It works well as a deterant.
Sorry about your loss. Hopefully Boston will move towards cameras so tragedy doesn’t strike again.
Last Year here in Las Vegas, some guy stabbed and set a cabbie on fire because he (the cabbie) didnt have enough money when the guy was trying rob him after getting a ride.
the police did catch the asshole. He was bragging about it to a friend in a casino bar or something.
I wonder if some morons think of cabbies the same way they think of the homeless–as not really being quite human. You know, they’re Haitian, they don’t speak English, they don’t have “real” jobs, etc.
Or maybe the kind of person who kills a cabbie is some drugged out punk who would rob anyone, and cabbies are just seen as convenient targets. Who are possibly seen as being outside the system, so who cares?
I swear on my eyes I’ve heard of cabs that are built to resemble squad cars. They have the bulletproof plexiglass between the front and back seats and a drawer-type contraption for exchanging money so a gun can’t be pointed at the cabbie’s head. Was this a movie or something I’m thinking of?
I know it would cost a deal of money (including protection for the driver’s seatback) but it is too far out of line to think this may be a good idea?
duffer, the inner city cabs have those. The suburban ones don’t. Back in 1999, when there was a rash of killings, the police strictly enforced their use. I think you could lose your license if you were caught with an open window. But drivers tend to be pretty lax about their use. And I think that they are no real barrier if someone is determined to get at you.
I do wonder about the mechanics of how that driver got stabbed last night. The (unsubstantiated) claim I heard was that the passenger didn’t want to pay him, and he tried to get the money from the passenger, so maybe he removed a barrier somehow.
A lot of sydney cabs have a plastic shield around the driver’s seat, with a tray to pass money through. Some (most) have only a half-shield. You can still reach around, but it’s harder to punch the cabbie (guns aren’t such an issue here). The cabbies tend not to like the shields though. A lot of taxis also have security cameras, some have GPS, and of course all have back-to-base radio with a panic button.
One night, I was in a cab going home, and the driver got a code voer the radio (M-17, I think it is from memory), signifying a violent passenger. The driver looked at me (I’m not small), and said, “That’s the cab there, give me a hand, will you?” We screeched to a stop behind the parked taxi, a third cab did likewise, and we all got out and went to assist. The situation turned out to be nothing much, but it was an interesting diversion.
I don’t think i’d want to drive a taxi for a living.
All the cabbies in Toronto I’ve spoken to are nice, thoughtful, articulate people, and the thought of one of them getting shot turns me slightly cold inside.
Any word on our security measures? I’m aware of a CB radio channel inside the car, but I don’t know about cameras…
I thought I read that when one took a cab in NZ/Australia, it was rude not to ride up front w/ the driver; is that untrue? Or is that an out-of -date thing?
Last time I took a cab, last weekend, even here in Boston, the driver asked me to sit up front. Only time that’s ever happened to me. I’m pretty non-threatening, at 125 lbs. and rather drunk (if I’m taking a cab, I’m probably drunk at the time), and generally seem to appear good-natured, so it probably wasn’t something he thought of as a huge risk.
$7 for Cleveland Circle to Washington St. seems really cheap, though, by my hazy memories of cab fares around the Boston area.
Around here you can’t sit in the front with the driver because that’s where the big, scary bouncer/body guard-looking guy sits. I had no idea that sort of thing would be neccessary in my city, especially not in the daytime. The driver told me that taxis were used almost exclusively by folks in the rougher neighborhoods and having a watcher cut down on trouble tremendously.
For one thing, it’s not clear to me that the fare was from Cleveland Circle. That was just the driver’s last known location, and from what I understand, a good two hours before the killing.
For another, you can get there from here cheaper than that. Cleveland Circle to Washington Square is probably $4. Of course, farther down Washington St. will be more, and the article doesn’t state where exactly this took place. But on a good morning with no traffic, I can get from Cleveland Circle to Brigham Circle (including a good stretch down Washington) for around $9.60.
