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Police ask taxi operator groups to take precaution over robberies+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) TOKYO, Jan. 7_(Kyodo) _ The National Police Agency asked taxi operator organizations on Wednesday to take crime prevention measures for taxis in response to a recent series of armed robberies, including fatal ones, in western Japan. The agency asked that the organizations implement its guidelines for taxi anticrime standards that stipulate measures such as placing a partition plate around the driver's seat, and told prefectural police headquarters across the nation to make similar requests locally. Meanwhile, taxi operators in the Kansai region are beginning to step up precautionary measures to protect taxi drivers such as by setting up partition plates and installing security cameras inside taxis. A taxi operator in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, said it began Wednesday morning to put partition plates in all 63 taxis it owns. Kazuo Nakagawa, a 59-year-old driver who works for the operator, said, "It's frightening because the incidents are continuing to happen, but this will give us a little bit of assurance. It's good that (passengers) will be unable to reach (the driver's) neck from behind." An Osaka taxi cooperative association which has about 100 member operators had begun a trial in December of installing security cameras in taxis, but after the series of robberies it started to consider putting such cameras in all of the approximately 7,600 taxis under its membership. Another taxi operator in Osaka which has installed security cameras in its 180 taxis said it believes the cameras have a preventive effect as a suspicious passenger who kept changing his destination noticed the camera and decided to get out. On Tuesday, two taxi drivers were slightly injured in assaults in Osaka Prefecture, a day after another cab driver was slashed in the neck and robbed of around 25,000 yen in the same prefecture. On Dec. 29, a 67-year-old taxi driver was found murdered and robbed of his proceeds in Higashiosaka, also in Osaka Prefecture, while a 54-year-old taxi driver was found dead in a parking lot with stab wounds to the neck in neighboring Hyogo Prefecture. Copyright ? 2009 Kyodo News International, Inc. |