What's With All The Cabbie Attacks?
October 9th 2006 07:14
“A man who allegedly assaulted a taxi driver in Melbourne's north-east and left him fighting for his life has appeared in court. [Andrew Findley] has been charged with recklessly causing serious injury, intentionally causing injury and unlawful assault. However, the court heard Finley could face a manslaughter or murder charge if the taxi driver he allegedly assaulted dies. The driver, who recently arrived in Australia from Afghanistan, was left lying unconscious on the side of the road suffering serious injuries, the court heard.” (The Age, 09 October 2006)
Taxi drivers have to put up with a lot of crap, especially when dealing with uncooperative passengers. If they’re lucky, passengers will just run off without paying the fare.
However, it seems that attacks against cabbies are getting more and more common, especially here in Melbourne. August 2006: In Donvale, cabbie Rajneesh Joga died after a passenger pushed him from his moving cab. October 5: In Watsonia North, a 14-year old stabbed a cabbie over a fare disagreement. October 9: In Eltham, a passenger punched a cabbie in the face and left him in critical condition. On the same day, in Werribee, passengers put a cabbie in a headlock and punched him in the head. It’s not only here in Melbourne where these types of things happen. Last February, in Sydney, cabbie Youbert Hormozi was dragged out of his cab and beaten to death. I don’t have all statistics available (as I’m too lazy to do in-depth research) so there may be other attacks that I don’t know about, but I believe this is a pretty bad scenario for cab drivers everywhere. One thing that strikes me in all this is, in nearly all of the attacks I’ve read about, the cab driver was South Asian or Middle Eastern in origin. I know there are a lot of migrant taxi drivers in Australia, so my question is this: are there a lot of attacks on migrant drivers simply because they make up the majority of cabbies, or are there a lot of attacks on them because they’re not white? In the first scenario, we must assume that the assaults are random yet regular, meaning these attacks occur on a regular basis and so a South Asian driver has as much a chance of getting bashed as a Caucasian driver. Because the white drivers are outnumbered by their non-white counterparts, over a period of time, they should, theoretically, receive fewer attacks as a group. While that is a disturbing thought, it is more disturbing if these assaults are, in part or as a whole, racially motivated. I don’t want to assume anything as what I know about this issue is based merely on newspaper reports, but if it turns out that racism played a part in these incidents, then the trouble is more deeply-rooted than simple fare evasion.
What do you think? Just an issue of violent passengers or something bigger?
*Taxicabs image from Wikipedia
Taxi drivers have to put up with a lot of crap, especially when dealing with uncooperative passengers. If they’re lucky, passengers will just run off without paying the fare.
What do you think? Just an issue of violent passengers or something bigger?
*Taxicabs image from Wikipedia
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