Columnist Jeff German: Taxi panel refuses to get it right

Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2004 | 11:07 a.m.

Veteran cabbie Craig Harris has been testing a video camera system in his taxi for nearly a month now for Yellow Checker Star Cab.

Harris, who doubles as managing editor of the cabbie magazine Trip Sheet, has been a longtime proponent of cameras as a deterrent to crime.

But as the Great Camera Debate inches forward, Harris has come to the conclusion that powerful companies like the one he works for have lost sight of the goal here.

"We started off 18 months ago with a security device to deter robbers, and now it's got a dual purpose of monitoring the employees just short of eavesdropping," he says.

And what is the do-nothing state Taxicab Authority Board, which has allowed the greedy owners to run roughshod over the drivers in this debate, doing about any of this?

Nothing, of course.

Amid a rise in violent crimes against cabbies, the five-member board of political appointees meets next Tuesday to consider a regulation that will order cameras in cabs.

It's a regulation, however, that has become so broad that it allows the companies to install cameras with sound if they desire -- and much more.

As reported here Oct. 1, no one at the Taxicab Authority Board bothered to figure out that it is illegal under state law to use cameras with sound without the permission of the drivers and passengers. The law is intended to protect privacy rights.

Civil libertarians are itching for a court fight on this one, and the privacy-conscious tourism industry is cringing at the thought of the board approving such a poorly written regulation.

The board has put itself in this predicament because it has failed to see through the stall tactics of the insensitive owners.

In February the board was ready to pass a regulation that would have ordered digital still cameras in cabs for the sole purpose of protecting the drivers.

It was a simple proposal, endorsed by law enforcement authorities, that was patterned after regulations in other cities.

But after the owners started bellyaching about the cost of the cameras, the board balked at the proposal and instead ordered what turned out to be a meaningless study. Eventually the companies started testing video cameras instead of still cameras. And no one at the board had the foresight or the courage to rein them in.

Video cameras, though more expensive, are viewed by the companies as giving them a greater ability to keep tabs on the drivers which, in the long run, could save the companies money.

"Some companies have tested cameras that do everything but take your blood pressure," Harris jokes.

But Harris is serious when he explains that the potential for abuse will be widespread if the current proposal is approved.

Sound capability is just one concern.

Harris says the video system being tested in his cab not only has a camera on the rear view mirror pointed inside, but it also has one on the dashboard aimed at the street.

"Nobody's going to rob me from the windshield," he says. "They're not going to lie on my hood and stick a gun through the glass at my face."

That has led Harris to conclude that the dashboard camera primarily would be used as a management tool to monitor the driving habits of drivers.

Cameras with sound. Cameras pointed toward the street.

This is how out of focus the Great Camera Debate has gotten -- all because the gutless Taxicab Authority Board has refused to stand up to the greedy companies.

What is it going to take to get this do-nothing board to do the right thing?