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Ottawa Cabs to Get Security Cameras 10/18/05 |
Cabs in Ottawa will be outfitted with
surveillance cameras to ensure both drivers’ and passengers’ safety.
Ottawa wants every cab in the city to have a
security camera installed by the spring of 2008. The surveillance cameras will take a snapshot of everyone who gets into a cab.
Yusef Al Mezel, a Union President who represents cab drivers, welcomes the plan because it will enhance safety for both drivers and passengers.
"We believe this one will help the drivers and the passengers to feel more comfortable," he says. "Sometimes those disputes go to the court without evidence. This time we will ensure what's going on in the cab.
"The industry is in full support of the implementation of the digital cameras [installed] in the cab."
All cabs will also have to be equipped with
global positioning systems.
One Ottawa taxi driver, Hamid Dadshany, says he's been assaulted twice. Both times, he ended up in the hospital. In 1996, he lost a month of work because of severe head injuries.
"It's a risky job, especially at night. We don't know whom we are picking up," he says.
Dadshany also remembers all too well the cab driver in Edmonton who was found stabbed to death in the trunk of a taxi last spring. Hassan Yusuf was a former Ottawa resident who had seven children.
His death sparked debate in Edmonton about the safety of cab drivers.
The Edmonton Taxi Cab Commission is now considering making cameras and other safety devices mandatory.
And there is evidence the
surveillance cameras are a deterrent.
Security cameras were made mandatory in Winnipeg in 2002, and since then police say robberies of cab drivers dropped significantly. In Toronto, violence against cabbies also dropped after cameras were introduced.
Source: ottawa.cbc.ca
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