Shrewsbury taxi drivers back safety camera plan
Friday 18th November 2011, 12:02AM GMT.
Calls have been made for CCTV to be installed in all Shrewsbury taxis to improve driver safety and potentially save council bosses ‘hundreds of thousands of pounds’ on legal fees.
The Shrewsbury Drivers Action Group today said CCTV cameras should be installed in more than 600 Hackney Carriages across the Shrewsbury area to help settle disputes and increase the safety of drivers.
It comes as Oxford City Council agreed for controversial video monitoring to be fitted to all 650 of its black cab and private hire taxis at a cost of £260,000.
Richard Price, chairman of Shrewsbury Drivers Action Group, said the matter would be brought up at their next meeting and could then be raised with Shropshire Council.
He said: “I think it is an excellent idea. Some cabs have the big screens separating the driver from the customer but the majority of them are saloon cars and don’t have that. Ninety-nine point nine per cent of customers are really excellent but you’ve always got the odd one.
“I’ve only had three serious incidents in over 20 years but they have involved a broken bottle and a knife so it only takes one incident. You could say I’m lucky to be sitting here today so anything that would look to improve driver safety I would call for.”
Experts also said far too much money was wasted by councils on legal fees and court proceedings which the introduction of CCTV would drastically reduce.
Patrick Nolan, a licensing consultant living in Shrewsbury, said: “We have noticed a lot of allegations of sexual offences against drivers more recently and these sorts of things would be easily sorted by the introduction of CCTV.
“It is a brilliant way to solve disputes.
“It is also something which could save the local authority hundreds of thousands of pounds in the long-run on legal fees and prosecutions. Overnight it could reduce their fees.
“Shrewsbury should do as Oxford has done as long as an independent data controller is in place to handle information.”
The cameras would record every conversation that took place in a taxi cab and footage gathered would be kept for 28 days. It would only be accessed in the case of a police investigation.
Lynne Towers, Shropshire Council’s public health and safety manager, said there were currently no plans in their budget to install CCTV across all taxis in Shrewsbury.
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yes! let’s sacrifice all of our privacy for a little bit of safety! Great idea!
I have a better idea. since its the politicians who are constantly dragging us into wars, ripping us off with their scams, increasing our taxes, and generally making us miserable, why not install CCCTVs to monitor everything the politicians do? Put them in their living rooms, and in their meeting rooms, and in the cafes where they hang out. Hey, what’s the problem? If they have nothing to hide, they surely won’t mind us watching!
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quote
“The cameras would record every conversation that took place in a taxi cab”
1 step closer to george orwells 1984 with less privacy.
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Something to hide?
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NO it is down to privacy , why do you want your conversations recorded? has having the desire to be a private individual become a crime? . It is bad enough when you have to listen to loud mouthed mobile phone users talking tosh ,watching any one under 26 craving fame and wanting to hang all their washing out in public for a few quid .If i use a taxi and choose to discuss anything i do not want it recorded.
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Who is going to have access to the tapes, I bet they will all be having a right laugh, does this mean more council non jobs?
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Change the record John your constant jibes are getting tiresome.
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….and I agree with Paul Farah
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Can they install some indicators while they are at it.
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………. and some air fresheners!
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indicators are not compulsory for taxi, just like wearing seat belt, using a phone/radio and parking anywhere.
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I’ve no problem provided the recording system is tamperproof with only ‘the authorities’ having access so evidence is not lost when appropriate.Can I suggest some sort of aircraft style black box that is impervious to most forms of damage?
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who pays?
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“Ninety-nine point nine per cent of customers are really excellent but you’ve always got the odd one.”
What’s the problem then?
I’m probably more at risk walking my dog across the local fields & there are no cameras there!
Invest the money by way of teaching your drivers to indicate, use mirrors, drive in accordance with the law, maintain their vehicles, not to ignore all other road users, have more than 12 words of english (even the english drivers), vacuum & freshen occassionaly and perhaps even once in a while smile and say thank you. That would be a benificial investment. Perhaps then the 00.1% will will then join the 99.9%!
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brilliant comment.
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Apparenly this “could save the local authority hundreds of thousands of pounds in the long-run on legal fees and prosecutions”. The magic word here is “could”. Where is any sort of evidence to back up this patently spurious figure??
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Dear All,
Can you all calm down….the CCTV with audio recording is locked away in the boot of the cab with no access to it other thatn by a Licensing official or the Local Police. If and when an incident occurs the cab driver would have to visit the Licensing Office at the Council, who would then open the DVR Recorder with a Key. The footage would be accessed only by an official with security password protection. The only footage that would be viewed and possibly copied for evidence would be the actual incident that had occured. No public image or audio would ever be looked at, shown or disclosed unless it was part of an ongoing police matter.
Please could you all get your facts right before blowing off. This is for both drivers and the publics safety, unless you feel it is OK for drunken thugs to attack a lone worker; and or a drunk female or vulnerable person or child can be attacked in the back of a cab.
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People are not blowing off . it is called requesting ALL
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People are not blowing off . What it is called is the general public requesting ALL the information before this type of thing takes place .You clearly seem to know all the information, why has the general public not then been given ALL the information. You do not implement anything with out explaining all in detail to the general public.
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Brought in at Telford Council on an intiative and hardly any taxi drivers took it up!
Don’t want their activities on camera – I wonder why?
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I’m normally on the civil liberties side of debates like this and I do think Andrew Finch’s post in reply to No2 above is pretty classy.
At the same time though this is an area of the debate where I have just a little sympathy with those wanting to install the cameras – because I think taxi-drivers put up with a lot, especially when ferrying aggressive drunks back and forth on Friday and Saturday nights.
On the other hand, the cameras wouldn’t stop these people publicly disgracing themselves given the narcissistic craving for any kind of cheap fame or notoriety people seem to have these days.
So we end up asking whether it’s worth sacrificing more of our privacy just to increase the chances of identifying the odd thief or assailant. My instinct is still to say no it isn’t, if I was a taxi-driver I’d no doubt think a little differently
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