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Why would DC cabbies need to carry?

Dreamer

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...iver-assaults/2011/11/30/gIQA9qMXDO_blog.html

Authorities have seen a number of attacks against cab drivers recently. On Saturday, D.C. police arrested Delonta Williams, 25 of Southeast, and a 15-year-old Capitol Heights youth, charging them with three November robberies of cab drivers.


Authorities said there had been 11 robberies and carjackings of cab drivers in December. Police have said many of the drivers were robbed by individuals who hailed the cabs near Metro stations.


Note to "AlexCabbie":
stay safe, man, and stay the heck out of the District...
 

okboomer

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Oklahoma, USA
Authorities said there had been 11 robberies and carjackings of cab drivers in December. Police have said many of the drivers were robbed by individuals who hailed the cabs near Metro stations.

Wow! Serious, Alex ... stay safe and keep the radar on!
 

Redbaron007

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Maybe if a few more people carried there, this would make the trend go in the other direction. :confused:
 

skidmark

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Maybe if a few more people carried there, this would make the trend go in the other direction. :confused:

Maybe if it were not a felony to have a handgun outside your home more people would carry there. But right now the folks who live in DC are boned outside 4 walls of their home.

stay safe.
 

rodbender

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Why can I not see OC for Me posts. I can see that he posted but I cannot see what he posted. I have nobody on my ignore list.
 
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09jisaac

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Why can I not see OC for Me posts. I can see that he posted but I cannot see what he posted. I have nobody on my ignore list.

If you want to read what he posts then you have to get here right after he posts or read someone's quotes of him. He deletes most of his posts a couple hours after he posts.
 

MilProGuy

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If you want to read what he posts then you have to get here right after he posts or read someone's quotes of him. He deletes most of his posts a couple hours after he posts.

It seems that this practice would be just as objectionable as using green font.
 

Alexcabbie

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As I see it, there are only a very few situations in which a firearm would be of avail in a taxicab robbery.

I have known four drivers who have been murdered by BGs. In two of these cases, the robber(s) waited until the cab was stopped in an advantageous location and the driver had put the transmission in Park. Then, they simply shot him from behind without warning, rifled through his pockets, stole whatever they found and fled. One BG had a .38 in a back-pack, cocked and ready to go (so he confessed) so the driver would not hear the clicks made by cocking the weapon. In the other two, the driver resisted the robbers, and lost.

Some time ago I saw photographs from a security camera inside a Fairfax County cab showing a live robbery as it progressed. It was shot in the dark with infra-red illumination, and it made my blood run cold. More than likely if you make a bad call and let BGs into the cab, they will have the drop on you.

Nevertheless, there are times when I do go armed. The killing of one of ours 3 days before Obama was sworn in was one of those times. In those times I carry concealed in a shoulder holster adjusted so I can grab the weapon with my left hand if need be. (In that case, it was evident that at least one of the BGs lived in the immediate vicinity, since the driver was called to a "safe" address which only a local resident would know that a cab would respond to after dark. I was not about to be a sitting duck.)

Veteran cabbies know that the best defense is very high situational awareness and asking the right questions of a passenger and knowing what responses indicate trouble, and how to spot behavior before the fare approaches. One night I was called to a service station, and as I pulled up I could see no one; but then two guys came out from around the side and motioned for me to drive closer. I suspected that it was to get out of range of the security cameras, and I took off. (They didn't call back to complain, either. I think I was right.) Another time a guy walked up to the cab throwing those idiotic "gang signs". I took off pronto.

Another thing about going armed in Northern Virginia is that you likely will have to go to D.C. or onto a military installation, etc. The Hack Inspector's opinion is that going armed violates the City law about drivers being forbidden to carry "dangerous articles", and he has stated that any driver found to be armed will find himself up in front of the taxi board facing revocation.

Situational awareness, after all, is the first line of defense no matter if you are armed or not....
 

since9

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Alex, any chance cab companies would spring for a layer of bulletproof glass thick enough to stop most handguns? Doesn't have to be as thick as that protecting the President, as that'll stop a round from a high-caliber sniper rifle.

Haven't a clue as to how much it might cost, but ceiling to floor would be nice. Communicate by speaker. Rotating cash drawer. Wouldn't protect you from the sides or front, though.
 

Alexcabbie

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In Alexandria the cab companies don't own the cabs (but they do try to push the drivers around even though WE pay THEM) and they are tighter with a dime than Scrooge before his epiphany.

The shield stuff is all good and well, but those things make it impossible to adjust the front seat beyond certain limits, interfere with passenger comfort (heating and AC don't flow as well), and make communication difficult among other things. A good amount of my gratuities come from people who are thoroughly entertained by my conversation. Having a great conversation is hard when your passenger feels like he's in the back of a police car.

If the day ever comes when I feel like I need to put my passengers in a cage, that will be the day I go learn to drive a semi rig. I might be an old dog, but I can still learn a new trick or two. :cool:
 

Brimstone

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Lehi, UT, ,
I don't understand how this is happening. How are these criminals carrying guns? I thought that was illegal in DC.
 

09jisaac

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Louisa, Kentucky
I don't understand how this is happening. How are these criminals carrying guns? I thought that was illegal in DC.

Well the ONLY logical explanation is that law abiding citizens are purchasing these guns for the "criminals". I put "criminals" in quotation marks because most of them are good people and if they didn't have access to a firearm then they would have never committed these crimes. WE have, as a society that allows these "assault weapons" and "assault clips", failed these people.
 

since9

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If the day ever comes when I feel like I need to put my passengers in a cage, that will be the day I go learn to drive a semi rig. I might be an old dog, but I can still learn a new trick or two. :cool:

I hear you. Security can be expensive, as well as cold to the paying, tipping passengers. I love seeing the countryside, and have thought of driving a rig myself. Not a lot of funds in it, but a living is a living. Would you be an owner-operator, or a driver for hire?
 

snatale42

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Dec 4, 2010
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Central VA
I hear you. Security can be expensive, as well as cold to the paying, tipping passengers. I love seeing the countryside, and have thought of driving a rig myself. Not a lot of funds in it, but a living is a living. Would you be an owner-operator, or a driver for hire?

Sorry, any driver that is looney enough to drive a cab without a security partition is asking for something bad to happen. Not that the drivers side window will do much, but most of the shady stuff happens from the back seat. Before moving to VA I never saw a cab in my life without one.
 

Alexcabbie

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I am hardly looney. I have also had the experience of being a passenger behind a security partition, and I didn't care for the experience worth a darn.

There are things such as immediately turning on the interior lights while the cab is still in motion that can defuse a tense situation. When it's pitch black outside and all of a sudden a potential BG is in a spotlight, and can't be sure of who might be witnessing what is going down, it's just amazing how things calm down. Outside of one guy with a knife who learned a lesson in Newtonian physics when I slammed on the brakes and threw his head into the dashboard back in '77, the worst trouble (other than run-outs) I have had is "handy" drunken females insisting on giving me a shoulder-rub. True, a partition would have prevented that. But why would I want to stop it??:cool:
 
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