Yellow Cab Erects a Barrier--It Hopes--to Driver Assaults

First it was Jackson Jones, a 50-year-old Yellow Cab driver who was found slumped over his steering wheel in front of Crawford High School in late April, shot to death.

Less than two weeks later, Roderick Thompson, 41, was shot to death in his Yellow Cab near the El Camino Country Club in Oceanside. That brought the total of cabby deaths since 1989 to six.

Nine days later, 33-year-old Tran Dung, also of Yellow Cab, was found bleeding on his steering wheel in Mission Valley with a gunshot in his abdomen. He was luckier than the others. He lived.

The string of murders and assaults has led Yellow Cab of San Diego to install bullet-resistant security shields in 16 of its 300 cars. On Monday, the company showed off the shields to the public.

Although the debate over whether such shields should be mandatory citywide has waxed and waned since 1990, Yellow Cab’s effort may prove significant: If the devices stem crimes against cabdrivers, Police Chief Bob Burgreen has pledged, he will take the matter up with the Metropolitan Transit Development Board, which recommended last fall that the shields be optional.

“I think we’ll be monitoring the successes of these, and I think I’ll be discussing it with the MTDB. If it’s successful, then that’s the way that every cab should be outfitted,” Burgreen said at a news conference Monday.

San Diego has an average of one cab robbery a week, Burgreen said. Most violence against cabbies takes place from the back seat, he added. “If nothing else, these shields will cut those types of robberies by half,” Burgreen said.

“It’s a good ride,” Mayor Maureen O’Connor said after cruising in the back seat from her office to the news conference and stuffing her money through the special payment slot.

“For everybody’s safety, I think it was a big step forward,” she said. “They’re going to cost some money, but I do think we should continue to implement the full program.”

The sliding and locking window is made of bullet-resistant--not bulletproof--plastic that the cabbyie can open and close with one hand. Designed by a Los Angeles company, the window is attached to a molded fiberglass seat that allows foot room for passengers.

The whole seat back and window costs $600 and is designed to custom-fit the car model. So far, it can be installed in a Chevrolet Caprice or a Ford LTD, Yellow Cab Director of Marketing Gene Hauck said. The company is working to design shields for Yellow Cab’s six other vehicle types, he said.

The device in itself won’t save drivers’ lives, Hauck conceded.

“It’s not the be-all and end-all of safety. (The shield), by itself, may not keep anyone from being harmed, but, in conjunction with training, we’re hopeful we can keep making it safer and safer,” he said.

After a cabdriver was slain in 1990, O’Connor took a ride with a company cabby, Hauck said, and asked Burgreen to look into the safety issue. He recommended lock boxes for cash, which almost all cabdrivers use, and mandatory protective shields.

Then it was up to the MTDB, which released a report last fall listing the pros and cons of the shields and concluding that the device should be optional. At least seven U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, have mandated it for all cabs.

Although San Diego has not taken that step, Burgreen arranged for mandatory safety training of all cabdrivers, beginning in 1990. Each driver must repeat the two-hour training every two years, Police Department community relations officer John Graham said.

The training, in conjunction with the shields, may stem the violence, Hauck said. The company is considering vehicle locators as well, so dispatchers can keep constant tabs on drivers.

Not all cabdrivers agree that the shields are worth the money, and many smaller cab companies recoil at the idea of mandatory installation.

“Our main opinion right now is that we haven’t seen that the expense is worth the benefit,” said Linda Burdett, a dispatcher for Co-Op Silver Cabs, a cooperative of about 40 to 50 cabs, most independently owned. “You don’t want to be in a situation where you are locked in the back of your own cab.”

Besides, she added, most cabbies get robbed or assaulted through the door windows. “It’s not our experience that it happens from the back seat. They’re usually face to face, at passenger door or at the driver’s door.”

And, if the city mandates it?

“I hope they’re going to pay for it, too,” Burdett said.

They’re not. “Not unless we get some kind of federal funding for it,” Burgreen said.

Yellow Cab has absorbed the cost, but, even if the shields are fully paid for, some cab companies would rather not use them.

“Back 100 years ago, we had them on the cabs,” said Alfredo Hueso, vice president of USA Cab Ltd. “Nothing’s changed since then. It wasn’t much of a deterrent, and the customers were complaining. The drivers didn’t like it, either. We ended up taking them out.”

Anyone bent on assault can still commit one, Hueso said.

“He won’t be able to stab the driver. He’ll just blow him away through the seat. Or he can step out of the cab and blow him away. You’ll be blowing money down a tube to supposedly save someone’s life, and that ain’t going to do it.”

Many cabbies feel the shields cut off communication with passengers, and customers often feel apprehensive when they see the device, critics say.

“They get in a cab, and they think they’re in jail. That’s the kind of comment we used to get,” Hueso said.

“If these guys are going to get to you, they’re going to get to you,” said Carey Wilber, 43, a Silver Cab driver who leases from a man who owns about six cabs. “So get a dog, or better yet, a pistol. A dog is better protection. You can train a dog.” Wilber has been robbed twice in his six years as a cabby, once at gunpoint.

Wilber said he doesn’t like the idea of being separated from clients by a device they may find intimidating. “We’ve always been a small kind of neighborhoodish-type of town. If I was picking up an old lady who I’ve known for a while, and she gets in and sees I’m driving an armored personnel carrier,” that might scare her, he said.

But at least one driver likes the shield. Said Don Eng of Yellow Cab, “Everyone that’s gotten in my car and seen the barrier says ‘Well, it’s about time.’ ”