Uninformed, Belligerent Dissent

How to understand the combativeness expressed by Ottawa taxi drivers when faced with the city council having passed a by-law requiring all taxi drivers in the city to install a $1,500 camera system in their cars by July 1...? It's long been known that this was on the horizon. It's a measure to ensure safety for the drivers themselves, as well as for their passengers.

To help offset the costs to taxi drivers, the city had agreed to permitting them a year earlier, to collect a modest increase in initial meter fees. Now, one of the arguments being advanced by militant unionized taxi drivers is that the cameras are too expensive, effectively belying the reality of having had a year to save the fare increases to pay for the cameras.

Perhaps the real issue here is that taxi drivers fear that the cameras will be used to track their every moves, give them no privacy, force them to do things they don't want to, in the knowledge that some ogreish Big Brother is looking in at them every moment of their working day.

These fears obviously are a backlash to the many complaints lodged against taxi drivers by some of their clients, citing rudeness and dirty vehicles and worse: instances of sexual groping. Some of these accusations have been proved to be unfounded, others have had the substance of criminal charges laid.

And there was the notorious case of a taxi driver having inadvertently knocked down a young woman with a late-night trio of inebriated companions, dragging her to her death, not realizing what had happened, until a later, tragic revelation. An inquest found the driver innocent of intent.

But on Tuesday of this week the outraged taxi drivers, faced with the need to install those cameras in short order, staged a loud traffic-stopping protest before City Hall. Some of their representatives entered council chambers to hear out the mayor's reasons for this move, then stamped out in loud disgust.

In the most urgently timely occurrence, that very same week, no fewer than three late-night, early-morning violent robberies took place against taxi drivers in the city. Handily, two suspects were caught on a surveillance camera at an area coffee shop. Had cameras been installed on the cabs themselves all of the robbery suspects might have been revealed.

In response to the quick spate of robberies, and in sad memory of past beatings of taxi drivers, woundings and even tragic deaths, the national union representative for the Canadian Auto Workers which represents Ottawa taxi drivers, planned a meeting with Chief White of the Ottawa Police.

The purpose would be to discuss ways in which future safety of taxi drivers might be enhanced through police action. The union representative, Mohamad Alsadi also expressed concern at the increase in verbal and physical assaults, and the need required by drivers for police to become more involved.

Chief White's advice? Put cameras in their vehicles. "I think cameras are a huge deterrent to people committing robberies." No kidding. In response to which Mr. Alsadi commented that cab drivers are not opposed to the installation of the video cameras, but rather to the potential for "spying" on them.

So what will it be, to continue to work within an inherently and potentially dangerous environment with no recourse to identifying an assailant? To prefer this over the installation of cameras, the presence of which will most certainly have the effect of making violent criminals think twice about assaulting drivers?

To say they're conflicted over the matter is an understatement. But it doesn't take a genius to understand they're reacting in a manner inimical to their own safety by rebelling against the imposition of cameras.