Black Cab security features

Thursday, 08^th January 2009

 

Story:    Black Cab security features.

 

A spate of attacks on taxi drivers in Japan, possibly economic downturn provoked, led to us being asked to film the security features found in London’s famous black cabs.

These are generally seen as the toughened plastic screen, separating the driver and passengers, the driver controlled door locks, the lack of a front seat and the controlled areas from which one pays the fare. Some taxi companies have their own alert button installed, raising an alarm at the controller that goes out to all the cabs in that circuit. Our driver had used it once, but that was in error searching for something she’d dropped down the back of her seat.

 

We heard stories about a couple of guys who had refused to pay, were locked in by the driver and whilst being driven to a police station had tried to kick in the plastic screen, with no success.

Our driver thought the security features were actually fairly minimal but compared to the zero features on Tokyo’s cabs they seemed both extensive and effective.