Taxi Driver Online

Hi All

Our council here has just authorised in car CCTV. As a member of the local association, I have been charged with trying to ascertain three things and so would welcome genuine factual comment from citiies already utlilising on:-

1. Any funding or part funding received from council ?

2. Any official released statistics on the reduction of incidents post CCTV installation.

3. Any sensible quotes from users

My thanks in advance guys and gals

Usually only after some poor sod has been killed.

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IDFIMH

It's on here somewhere recently where Sheffield (I think) had a 60% drop in attacks.

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IDFIMH

You are doing the right thing, well done.

As for the costs, well let's work it out per job.

Say the system costs £750 i.e. a good system with 2 or 3 cameras.

Paid back over three years means £250 a year, £5 a week.

Say you do 20 jobs a day, 6 days a week, 4p per job.

Say the car is shared by two drivers i.e. 40 jobs per day, 2p a job.

Less the tax, means that installing a very good CCTV, which could save someone's job, or their life, could cost as little a 1.6p a job.

So if anyone wants to say that CCTV it's an expensive option, I say go get another job.

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IDFIMH

Ask your council to pursue Govt funding under something like a "Crime and disorder reduction partnership" or something similar.

In Crawley we get £250 towards the cost of an installation subject to certain conditions, such as encripted data not viewable by the driver and working late/night shifts.

I got an Xtron system fitted (about £600) with one wide angle camera in my Superb and have no problems with it.

I've also not had a"runner" of any consequence since I got it fitted ( just some Kids on a £3.50 job which wasn't worth pursuing)

Ignore anyone who thinks that it will annoy passengers or will encourage them to "play up"to the camera, it is great to have it fitted.

ps the Xtron system also records sound!

see also http://www.taxi-library.org/safety.htm#top

Although this is from America it shows the effectiveness of cameras

Good Luck
pps Join the GMBPDB as well!!!

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Our safety is Paramount

We got £150 towards our CCTV from the Council.

Sheffield council invested £7000 after asian drivers were subjected to physical and racial abuse 1 in every 7 journeys, after the installation of cctv this dropped to 1 in a 100.

There are various forms of funding available if a council wishes to assist in that way. Mainly out of community safety budgets etc. Ask your council what departments deal with community safety funding.

There are several councils in England and Wales that have found a limited amount of funding for CCTV projects. However the main priority is that you get council acceptance for CCTV provision.



There are no official figures, only unofficial figures. We have certain articles on TDO advising of the reduction of incidents since the implementation of CCTV. However it stands to reason that CCTV will deter those who desire to make false allegations against a driver and it will probably lessen the risk of intimidation and several other factors but those hardened criminals who are superfluous to the law, might never be deterred.



I don't know what you refer to when to say sensible quotes but in my opinion and I assume everyone else "it is far better to have the option of CCTV installation at your disposal, than not have that option."

Besides, the DfT best practice recommends these types of safety measures so any council who doesn't apply them has no consideration for the well being of Taxi drivers.

Regards

JD

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Copyright notice © The contents of this post are copyright of JD and are not to be reproduced outside of TDO without written permission.

The only thing with that is that many councils have already received money from those sources and may not be in a position to make a fresh application

Very emmotive but not factual as requested please.

Thank you for being positive. I have done a similar style of calculation. well done to you too.

Thank you fos such a positive and helpful response.

Thank you. Is there any way you can ascertain exactly how this money was spent. for example, did it full fund some cars? Did it relate ta partial funfing to some cars? etc Would be interesting to now. Yorkscot

Thank you Nigel. Could you tell me which town or city thogh please ? ta

Do you really think City of York council will help fund something like this,
when the say they cant afford to fund fireworks in november for the second year running.
my solution was to get window stickers saying CCTV is fitted for a fiver,
i work in york on private hire and had very little trouble since i put them on

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now a licensed hackney driver