By Mary Manning

Mon, Aug 23, 2004 (9:35 a.m.)

Although taxicab drivers are three times as likely to die on the job as police or firefighters, the president of the Nevada Taxicab Authority board said Sunday it would be November before the commission could change state policy to approve cameras in cabs or other safety measures.

The fact that a Las Vegas cabdriver was set on fire Friday by a robbery suspect will not speed up a University of Nevada, Las Vegas study on the use of cameras or other security devices in taxicabs. The study isn't expected to be complete until September when it will be presented to the board, President Richard Land said. It will take until November before the board can act on its findings.

"We're terribly close to having a recommendation on that," Land said of the governor-appointed board which sets policy for the Taxicab Authority.

Keith Schwer, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the university, said that a number of options were under study to protect Las Vegas cab drivers, including still and video cameras, shields between driver and passenger, Global Positioning System devices and open microphones in taxis.

"This unfortunate incident (the burning of the cabbie) says we have to go forward on this issue," Schwer said.

In comparing Department of Labor statistics on homicide rates per 100,000 people, Schwer said he discovered that cab drivers are three times as likely to be murdered on the job as police officers or firefighters.

Nationwide, the cabbie-victim homicide rate is 32 per 100,000 population, a rate four times more than that of police officers, according to statistics on the Labor Department's Web site.

"It's riskier being a taxi driver than being a policeman or a firefighter," Schwer said. "It's clear to me we will be increasing security for local taxi drivers."

A handful of still and video cameras that were supposed to be placed inside taxis last week for testing were delayed, largely because of technical glitches.

The cameras can't come soon enough for one long-time local cab driver.

"I will be testing a video camera with sound myself," said Craig Harris, local taxi driver and editor of the Trip Sheet, a local taxi driver magazine.

The camera expected to be installed in his cab on Friday, however, had a technical problem and would not work. Taxicab drivers also plan to offer surveys to the public for comment on videocams.

Unlike convenience stores with videotaping cameras, taxicabs have no way to record what goes on within the vehicle, Harris said.

"The problem of attacks on cabbies is getting worse," Harris said. "We have nothing in our taxies to deter them."

Providing higher security for local cab drivers has been under discussion for 15 months, but it took on an added urgency Friday night, Harris said.

About 8 p.m. Friday, Nellis Cab Company driver Pairot Chitprasart, who has been driving taxicabs in Las Vegas for about five years, picked up a passenger at the Olympic Garden Gentlemen's Club on Las Vegas Boulevard South.

Near Las Vegas Boulevard and Charleston Boulevard, the man demanded the Chitprasart's money and Chitprasart refused, Metro Police said.

The passenger doused Chitprasart with a flammable liquid then set him on fire and fled the cab, police and witnesses said.

Chitprasart got out of the cab and started running and a passerby helped stop him and extinguish the flames. Chitprasart was burned over 70 percent of his body, mainly his torso, and was in critical condition at University Medical Center this morning, authorities said.

Metro Police arrested James Scholl, 33, about noon on Saturday in a downtown apartment on Eighth Street after a tipster heard him bragging about robbing a cab driver and setting him on fire.

When police went to the apartment, they found Scholl's hair singed. Investigators said they also found evidence in the apartment linking Scholl to the attack.

Scholl has been booked at the Clark County Detention Center on charges of attempted murder, robbery, burglary, mayhem and possessing stolen property.

Police also plan to book Scholl on charges related to another taxi robbery, though they didn't give specifics.

There have been concerns raised about taxi driver safety for years. Such concerns are always heightened immediately after an attack on a driver.

A recent taxicab incident involved two suspects who forced a North Las Vegas Cab driver into his trunk in mid-July then robbed him. The driver had picked up both men near The Orleans hotel-casino at Arville Street and Tropicana Avenue. The driver was discovered locked in the trunk by a passerby hours later after his cash was stolen.

The concept of improved security for taxi drivers emerged in 1992 after a series of violent crimes against drivers and then in 1998 after two cabbies were murdered within four months of each other. Each time the idea for putting cameras inside cabs was opposed by cab companies that objected to the high costs they would have to cover to install the cameras.

The Nevada Taxicab Authority, the state agency under the Nevada Department of Business & Industry, is conducting its own investigation into the latest attack on a cab driver, spokeswoman Amanda Getzoff said.

The authority's investigator is working with Metro Police and the Las Vegas Fire Department on the investigation, Getzoff said.

Anyone with information about the suspect is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (702) 385-5555.