Have you ever felt insecure while traveling by cab or treated badly by the cab driver?
Well, you are not alone.
There are some cases have been registered where passengers were treated badly or worse. Yet, compare to other means of traveling, especially at odd hours, the cab is still one of the safest ways available.
With some little awareness, you can avoid any negative incident on board. This article comprises such five safety rules.
Make sure it’s legit:
Cab safety awareness starts even before you set your feet on the vehicle. While hailing cabs, local unregistered cabs can approach you and even offer cheaper prices than registered taxis.
However, unregistered taxi drivers are really a mixed bag; most of them are innocent peoples trying to earn some extra money but some of them may have not very good intentions. Differentiation between bad or good is not possible in a moment’s notice. To stay err on the side of caution, don’t take a chance and always use registered taxis or cabs instead. Registered taxi or cabs are usually well monitored by authorities through sophisticated technologies, making those much safer options.
All genuine licensed taxi and minicab drivers’ vehicles are equipped with a meter and visible service provider’s logo. In nearly all countries, the registered taxi driver is required to carry and display their ID badge in the vehicle. If you don’t see a badge or a meter, do not get into the vehicle.
Never ride alone if you are drunk:
If you are drunk, leave your own car in the parking lot and take a cab, with a friend. You can easily fell asleep after drinking and wouldn’t be in a position to defend yourself on your own. Riders have been raped, robbed and killed after getting on taxi alone in the intoxicated state.
Even you are compelled to ride alone, tells a friend to write down the details of the vehicle and keep their number on speed dial to call him/her for informing about your location.
Keep your valuables close and keep the windows close:
It is very obvious and instinctive yet so many people forget to keep their valuables out of the site. Expensive jewelry or gadget catches the attention of muggers and if you are alone inside of the vehicle, you would be a very vulnerable target. Keep your valuables completely out of the sight of the driver or outsiders by putting all of your money, and jewelry in your bag and preferably keep those on the floor of the car. The only exception is mobile, keep it on your hand, so that you can contact your friends or take pictures in case of emergency.
You should also keep your windows glass rolled up so that no one can slip their hands and try to steal or attack you. Thieves are always looking for easy targets. By keeping the window glasses high, you can make yourself harder to reach from outside. Keeping the window rolled up seems like a small thing to do, but from a thief’s point of view, this is a big hurdle in the way of an opportunity to reach in, open slip their hand, and take things from you.
The downside is the lack of fresh air, but you can always roll the window down a little more when you’re on the highways and away from the stoplights.
Don’t be overtly friendly and always sit in the back seat:
Though it is completely fine to casually talk with your driver, never get so much carried away that he might have the impression that you have a personal interest. Even if you are the kind of person who just loves to have a conversation with everybody, keep your urges in check and never reveal the location of your home or contact information.
Besides just not being overtly friendly, always sit in the back seat, if you are riding alone. It will help to create a distance between you and the driver and you will have two ways to exit instead of one. Remember, the less accessible and visible you are, less likely you will be targeted. Actually, in many cases, cab drivers actually prefer you to sit in the back because they consider the front seat to be a part of their private zone.
What organizations can do to ensure cab safety?
Ensuring safety of the female employees is a major headache for enterprises. There are cases where female employees were raped or males employees were killed on their way to home after being dropped off. Moreover, drivers aren’t safe also; violence against company cab drivers is also not uncommon. If you are an employer who wants to protect your reputation and resources, mobile platform based cab management systems are the solutions you are searching for.
GoCabs by MaxMobility, for example, is a mobile platform based cab management app which provides real-time location of the employees and vehicles. Your employees can confirm their arrival at the destination through this app and in the case of emergency they can send distress button for help. You can also track the real-time location your employees through GPS technologies. Especially in India, where enterprises of every size are bound to provide drop off services to their night shift employees, such affordable, scalable and easy to install mobile solutions like GoCabs are the best solution.
In conclusion, usage of proper technology, little more responsibility from both employee and employers’ side and remembering those safety rules can keep you safe. Last but not the least, trust your guts. If anything doesn’t seem right, probably you are correct.