As a taxpayer, I'm not backing down on this. Why not cameras in public places where the malefactors commit crimes in broad daylight? That is a matter of life and death, too. This is ONE killing. How about the other 29? It seems to me that the cab drivers can take action on their own, action that won't cost any money. What is the big issue with cabs, anyway? Why does the city need them. If it is for visitors, why not just assure visitors can get cabs when they need them? Why not just be done with this hailing stuff, except when the hailer is a hotel employee finding a cab for a customer? Personally, I think most cab rides should go through a dispatcher who can make sure there is solid data on the passenger in case something goes wrong. There has to be a reason so many immigrants end up doing this work. I think it is that it involves a single skill, plus there isn't really a market constraint on number of employees. But if we want to insure our ability to get conventions and such, I think there are ways to do that not involving putting a television camera in every cab. I think that is an extreme solution that was arrived at without much thought. Thoughtless solutions followed by public pressure campaigns are too common in this country. I hope the taxpayers of Minneapolis show some spine and resist this one. It is being pushed with emotion, not thought, and that isn't how I want Minneapolis to arrive at decisions. And, by the way, why can't some of these people ride the bus? We are ALREADY subsidizing that. And I don't recall too many shootings on the buss, probably because there is safety in numbers.
Cab Safety
The way to deter taxicab crimes is to inject a process that takes away anonymity. I'm not sure what that would be, but maybe to take a cab, you should have to identify yourself with picture ID. You can't buy cigarettes nowadays without it. Why should be cab rides be different? Anyway, the cab driver gets the ID, call it in AND his itinerary to a recordkeeping number, and only THEN lets the passenger in the cab where the danger is. My thought is that MAYBE this process would scare off people hoping to pull off a crime with no chance of getting caught. You wouldn't let someone CLAIMING to be the gas company in your house without ID, right? And why wouldn't you? Because that could be the setup for all kinds of crime. Well, the cab driver is assuming risk, too. So, maybe he needs to be as cautious as the homeowner is at the front door. Heck, maybe it should be a LAW the breaking of which would lead to license probation for the driver who violated it. Some losers in the criminal community would still try to beat the law, but a lot would have too much sense, I think.
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Jim Mork
Cooper Neighborhood
Longfellow Community
Minneapolis, MN
We think. You'll like it here.
And we're more fun than a barrel of Norwegians
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