In some localities and for some time periods, you are more likely to be a victim of homicide as a taxi driver than as a police officer or security guard (in other localities and time periods, policing is usually more deadly). In terms of non-fatal assaults, taxi drivers are right up there with police officers and security guards. The NIOSH and the US Department of Health and Human Services, and Department of Labor, have studies of this going back to the 1990s (https://www.taxi-library.org/oshataxi.pdf ).
Taxi drivers make easy crime targets for a number of reasons. They carry cash, they can be lured to virtually any remote (or easy to escape) location, they are working alone, they are working late at night.
Between 1992 and 1997, at least 50 cab drivers were murdered each year while at work. There may or may not be a recent surge in a specific location, but it has been a dangerous profession for a long time.
I'm perfectly willing to believe the parent that this driver really did tell him this. But 22 people you personally know in a single year doesn't pass a basic smell test. I lived in South Bay LA in the early 90s when there was legitimately a statistical wave of carjacking when it was first invented and crime in general was huge multiples of what it is now, and I never knew a single person it happened to personally, over my lifetime so far, let alone a single year.
I can accept professional drivers are at much greater risk compared to the average daily driver, but do rideshare drivers actually know each other? This sounds very much like a 2020s Polly Klaas situation where one or two spectacular stories actually happen and the legislature starts responding and we end up with decades of three-strikes law doing thousands of times as much harm as ever happened from girls being kidnapped out of their bedrooms.
I lived in South Africa and personally know 3 people who were car-jacked. One was shot in the chest (and since recovered). One the car was broken down so they just lost their wallets and phones.
I also know 5 other people who have had their cars stolen (while they weren't in them). This includes 2 direct family members.
If you're a taxi driver, and all your friends are taxi drivers, I can easily imagine knowing 5x more.
Comments
In some localities and for some time periods, you are more likely to be a victim of homicide as a taxi driver than as a police officer or security guard (in other localities and time periods, policing is usually more deadly). In terms of non-fatal assaults, taxi drivers are right up there with police officers and security guards. The NIOSH and the US Department of Health and Human Services, and Department of Labor, have studies of this going back to the 1990s (https://www.taxi-library.org/oshataxi.pdf ).
Taxi drivers make easy crime targets for a number of reasons. They carry cash, they can be lured to virtually any remote (or easy to escape) location, they are working alone, they are working late at night.
Between 1992 and 1997, at least 50 cab drivers were murdered each year while at work. There may or may not be a recent surge in a specific location, but it has been a dangerous profession for a long time.
I'm perfectly willing to believe the parent that this driver really did tell him this. But 22 people you personally know in a single year doesn't pass a basic smell test. I lived in South Bay LA in the early 90s when there was legitimately a statistical wave of carjacking when it was first invented and crime in general was huge multiples of what it is now, and I never knew a single person it happened to personally, over my lifetime so far, let alone a single year.
I can accept professional drivers are at much greater risk compared to the average daily driver, but do rideshare drivers actually know each other? This sounds very much like a 2020s Polly Klaas situation where one or two spectacular stories actually happen and the legislature starts responding and we end up with decades of three-strikes law doing thousands of times as much harm as ever happened from girls being kidnapped out of their bedrooms.
I lived in South Africa and personally know 3 people who were car-jacked. One was shot in the chest (and since recovered). One the car was broken down so they just lost their wallets and phones.
I also know 5 other people who have had their cars stolen (while they weren't in them). This includes 2 direct family members.
If you're a taxi driver, and all your friends are taxi drivers, I can easily imagine knowing 5x more.