Taxi drivers say theirs is a risky profession - a lesson brought into sharper focus with the death of a driver this week.
By EILEEN SCHULTE
Published September 4, 2004
In his 25 years of picking up fares, Roger McKinnon has been shot at, kidnapped and burned on the hand with a cigarette.
During that time, six cabdrivers he knew of were killed; two of them were his friends.
One was shot in the back; one, in the head.
Because he has pretty much seen it all, he said he's not scared to drive his Yellow Cab in the wake of the slaying of a taxi driver this week in an Eckerd parking lot in Clearwater.
McKinnon says that he, like other drivers who have had a knife held to their throats - follows the unwritten rules that cabdrivers pick up on the job. Don't wear your seat belt: A deranged or drugged-out passenger could strangle you with it.
Let riders sit in the front seat, where you can see them.
Never pick up someone who's trying to flag you down. Or someone from a pay phone or a convenience store. Or someone standing outside a house at night in a bad neighborhood. That may signal that the person may have given dispatch a dummy address.
Just drive right on by, and you might live another day.
Although several drivers interviewed Friday at St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport said they were not afraid to carry on their work after the killing, everyone was talking about it.
There were rumors about how the man was killed. One cabdriver said he heard that the driver's neck had been slashed and that he had been tossed into the trunk. Investigators have not released details about how the driver died.
Whether the drivers admit it or not, fear is their constant passenger.
"We face it all the time," said Ken Krebs, who drives a sea-foam green Checker Cab. "I've got a sixth sense about people. You learn."
Krebs, who said he drove a taxi in Atlanta during the Olympics, said that although he has never been physically threatened, some of his passengers have "gotten abusive, language wise," especially when they were drunk.
"I work the beach a lot," he said. "A woman and her boyfriend got in. Every other word out of her mouth" was an obscenity.
"I told them to get out," Krebs said. "I don't have to take that kind of language."
In Pinellas County, if a rider becomes aggressive, drivers can rely on several techniques.
Yellow Cab's 350-car fleet is equipped with GPS tracking, two-way radios, on-board computers and panic switches installed in secret locations. Drivers, who typically lease the cars, send dispatchers confidential codes in text messages if danger arises.
Checker Cab's 67 vehicles have much of the same equipment, including the satellite tracking technology and panic switches offered to their independent contract drivers.
"In nine years, I can only tell you of three times a driver had to hit the button," said Checker Cab's general manager, Gary Bassler.
The GPS tracks the cars to within 3 feet of their actual positions.
But none of the cabs has a partition, and neither company allows drivers to carry guns.
Those measures are simply not good enough, said James L. Szekely Sr., director of the International Taxi Drivers Safety Council, based in Huntington, W.Va.
"The drivers are basically picking up hitchhikers, total strangers, for a living 24/7 and taking them anywhere they want to go," he said. "It's the most dangerous occupation you can think of."
He said the bare minimum safety requirements should be hijack or trouble lights that flash "call 911" to alert others that a crime is occurring, on-board digital cameras, proper training and, especially, partitions.
"Even Al Capone had safety shields in his cabs in Chicago," Szekely said, adding that this is not new technology. "My dad was a cabdriver in Detroit in the 1960s and had a safety shield in his car, and our family slept half-way decent at night."
"It's like having the cure for cancer and not buying the serum," said Szekely, a former cabdriver in Tampa who survived a midnight knife attack in 1984. "It's all about the money. They know these devices work."
It may also be about image.
"I found because Florida is known for its tourism industry, typically shields are not used throughout the state," said Lee Schissler, spokesman for Yellow Cab national headquarters in Houston. "It creates a negative connotation for the visitors. It would give the view they are in an unsafe (environment)."
He said other devices such as the cameras and trouble lights have not been installed because the murder of a cabdriver in Pinellas "is an anomaly in the market."
"It has not been an issue in the past," Schissler said. "If you look at the cab companies in the country, we are ahead of the norm (as far as safety measures). It's important to note (Pinellas County) has not been a high-crime area in the past."
Pinellas cabdrivers earn between $50 and $200 per day, depending on workload and motivation, said Bassler of Checker Cab.
Sure, 99 percent of the time you feel safe, said Ken Krebs, the Checker Cab driver.
But, he said, "You never know who is going to be sitting behind you."
