Council Committe Acts to Curb Violence Vs. Cabbies

By JULIAN CANTRES

A City Council committee approved a measure on Tuesday designed to help protect taxi and livery drivers from assault by posting notices in the cars that violators faced 25 years in prison.

Seven members of the Transportation Committee unanimously voted in favor of the bill that matches those already present on city buses, also discouraging people from assaulting their drivers.

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the rate of homicide against taxi drivers is 20 times higher than that of the average worker.

Manhattan Councilmember Ydanis Rodríguez, who led the meeting, said that there was a “rash of violence” against taxi drivers over the summer, noting one incident in June in which a driver was hit with a wooden cutting board.

As a former livery cab driver, he spoke in favor of the measure, saying that it is important to “protect some of the most vulnerable workers” in the city.

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Mamnun Ul Haq, co-founder of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, recalled, in a press release, being in a hospital with a knife wound when the campaign was starting. He called for “real protection” for people whose job involves serving the public, saying “Maybe the man who stabbed me in Brooklyn Heights would have thought twice if he knew the city valued my safety.”