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Suggested safety practice for women folk engaging cabs/ auto's

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Written By murali772 - 7 December, 2014

Bangalore law and order Safety Media Reports

A woman in Delhi was raped on Friday allegedly by a taxi driver who is now missing. - - - The woman in her complaint said that after getting into the cab last night, she fell asleep and woke up to find the car parked at a secluded spot. The driver then allegedly raped her. She told the police that the driver then dropped her near her home in north Delhi after threatening to kill her if she spoke of the matter to anybody. "The woman clicked a photograph of the car's number plate and then made a PCR call to report the incident," a police officer said.
 
When an Uber driver is requested via its app, the user is shown a photo of the driver along with his phone number when he is en route. In this case, the suspect's phone was allegedly not registered in his own name. Uber uses GPS installed on drivers' phones to track their locations, but the driver had switched off his phone. 
 
For the full text of the NDTV report, click here. 
 
With the fare charged by the new-age cabs becoming comparable to what is charged by the auto, one had begun to patronise them more and more in place of the auto. And, as for the women folk, the additional incentive were the safety aspects, in the belief that they had fool-proof driver back-ground check as also vehicle tracking systems in place. This unfortunate incident has exposed the gaps, and thereby lowered their credibility. One, however, hopes that the lessons have been learned, and that the systems will be revamped to ensure that such mishaps do not recurr in future. 
 
Going by the report "the woman clicked a photograph of the car's number plate and then made a PCR call to report the incident". Now, supposing the woman had taken the picture before boarding the cab, and in full view of the driver (and may be "watsapped" it to her next of kin), one can perhaps be reasonably sure that the driver wouldn't have dared to do what he did. 
 
As such, perhaps that's what all women need to do in future. And, in order that the driver lot do not take offence to the practice, perhaps the city Police Commissioner can issue a formal open statement advising women passengers to do so, may be citing the Delhi incident.
 
Either way, I am going to be suggesting to the women folk in my family to adopt the practice right away, and if a driver takes offence, to say thank you and walk away. 
 
Muralidhar Rao

COMMENTS

CABS STILL A FAR SAFER OPTION

Promod Kapur - 10 December, 2014 - 08:27

I beleive no matter how many safeguards one may want to put in writing,in law or by means of  orders/training, and both are indeed very necessary and desirable, ultimately crime is committed by a person with criminal intent. That is the bottom line. If more and more people are taking undue advantage of the system or of a particular situation that places a person, particularly women  in a vulnerable position, then it is both a failure of the system as well as that of the individuals who believe that they will/can get away unchallenged and unscathed. This means there is little emphasis on both implementation and enforcement of the rules and laws on one side but we as individuals also carry a certain responsibility. Clearly therefore the onus of changing this situation lies both on the enforcement agency as well as on the individual attitudes. While it is easy to find a scapegoat quoting one violation among a myriad of rules that one may not even be aware of because he has got the permit under some influence, the problem can not be remedied merely by changing rules or making public statements and street shows. It is a tough call to change the mindset of people long used to 'fixing' work, but a start has to be made somewhere and that somewhere is here and the time is now. Policy making and implementation structure needs a complete look over. It also can not happen if left only to bureaucrats and police or any department, unless there is a cooperation and active participation by simple people like you and me. As a start, we as users also have a responsibilty that we (particularly ladies) unwittingly dont get into a situation whereby we become vulnerable. Changing lfestyles in urban areas particularly of those who have access and means to adopting hues of western culture have unfortunately not addressed the plane truth that those who provide us services, generally are at a different level of transition and are not fully in sync - not yet, with the fast changing cultural scene in metros.

But there may also lie an opportunity here for the young unemployed, not so well academically conversed women to learn driving and perhaps the state can encourage and promote through a special programme setting up a 'Ladies Driven' cab service as an enterprise to cater to the millions of ladies working in service sector establishments. Driving is not a skill that requires any extraordinary abilities or academic qualifications beyond basics, and perhaps the state can engage with IT/ ITES/Financial institutions and other companies to patronise such  enterprises in all metro cities for use by their female staff. Such a service could also be available 'on call' by unaccompanied ladies in any situation.

IS THE DEPARTMENT/MINISTRY LOOKING AFTER WOMENS' RIGHTS AND EMPOERMENT LISTENING ?

But as an introspective exercise, if a lady is partying hard till late evening and then goes to sleep in a car whose driver she has never known and is a complete stranger, is not what an alert person would do, even if the stringest of rules and laws are in place. A crime has been committed by an errant individual, he has betrayed the trust of a person and this deviant behaviour is inexcusable, deserves the stingest of punishments, the agency which has provided the srvice is also blameworthy, but these are all after the event comments/outrage. There is also a lesson to be learnt by all future users, particularly women.

Transport Dept's posturings

murali772 - 28 December, 2014 - 14:26

Transport Department officials raided the premises of taxi aggregator Taxi For Sure on Tuesday and directed it to immediately stop booking services till the company registers with the Regional Transport Authority. The raid comes a day after the premises of Uber, another aggregator service, was raided and the service banned. Joint Commissioner Narendra Holkar, along with other officials, raided the office in JP Nagar 2nd phase around 2.30 pm and examined the company’s registration and the details of its active drivers.
 
Officials of the company were unable to answer the questions to the satisfaction of the authorities and as a result, the order to stop services was issued on the spot.  “An aggregator also requires a licence. What you are doing is illegal and wrong. Did you even approach the RTA to understand what steps to take?” asked an irate Holkar.
 
- - - - Speaking to reporters after the raid, co-founder Aprameya Radhakrishna said, “We will work with the government and take the necessary steps. We will get a clarification and move forward.” The company believes that since it is a technology services provider which does not own the cabs it operates, there was no need for it to register with the RTA. However, in the past, police and the RTA have made it clear that aggregators would have to register as well.
 
For the full text of the report in the New Indian Express, click here. 
 
TaxiForSure, Uber, etc are not too different from MakeMyTrip.com, RedBus.com, BookMyShow.com, etc (as also KarnatakaMobileOne - check this), who have been around from long now, and have likewise been offering aggregation of the services of the service providers in their respective fields. I very much doubt if MakeMyTrip is registered with DGCA, RedBus with Transport Dept, or BookMyShow with whoever. Even if they attempt to, do the respective regulatory agencies (rather, controlling agencies as they function now) have a process in place for the purpose, these being the kind of services they hadn't quite envisaged when their mandates where drawn up, besides their being too lazy to update them in tune with the advances taking place in the respective fields?
 
As such, all that the Transport Dept lot are upto, very likely, is plain posturing, essentially to deflect away any blame that may fall on them due to inadequacies/ incapacities in their own systems. 
 
Outsourcing of many of their back-end jobs to professional agencies, which can then be used by the likes of TaxiForSure, Uber, etc, is very clearly the need of the hour. 
 
 

The mistake Uber committed

murali772 - 15 December, 2014 - 09:55

So is Uber not to blame here at all? Well, no. There is one mistake they did and there is a lot to learn from it. And that is they relied on the government approval system to enrol a driver. A character certificate from the police and a commercial driving license as the backing documents to hire a driver may be okay in other countries. However, in India, such things are easily arranged with a modest bribe or jugaad. 
 
For the full text of the column by Chetan Bhagat in the ToI, click here.
 
Very clearly, police verification records, RTO's driving licence records and vehicle registration records, as much as BBMP's property tax records (check here), Election Commission's voter lists (check here), in fact, records of most government set-ups, are all plain jugaads.
 
And, particularly given the current security scenario, the country can't afford to let it remain the same way any longer.
 
As such, it's high time they all switched to engaging professional set-ups, quite like the Passport department has engaged TCS for all its back-end work, and IT department has like-wise tied-up with Infosys. 
 

Patches won't work!

kbsyed61 - 16 December, 2014 - 17:31

Murali,

Just because Tata lend some help in passport services is not a measure of 100% success. Here is an report from ground on the reality.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/447807/agony-continues.html

you can't have system that are designed to ration services? Which clearly means demand surpassing the supply, clear pathways to bribery, recommendations for out of turn favors. Not sure what did Tata helped MEA with? Rationing too?

 

a few thoughts

blrpraj - 16 December, 2014 - 22:45

I think it is time to think differently. Cab companies need to examine the option of cabs driven by women taxi drivers along with an armed woman escort for use by women passengers. This could be one option made available for women who want to avail of this facility.

Having said that; safety of women is very much a socio cultural problem that has to be tackled at the grassroots level. Every country is it's share of issues; including the US for example which has a gun violence issue arising from the prevalent gun culture. Likewise, India has a women safety issue unlike what i have seen in my travels to developed countries like Canada, UK, Japan and even here in the US.  In fact UK and US also don't come close to the overall safety levels in Japan where one could walk around and board the subway even in the heart of Tokyo at 10 or 11pm in the night. So, culturally, we Indians come way down in the list when it comes to treating fellow human beings (especially women) with respect and dignity, which has to change. Someone reading this refuses to believe that? Then please look around, and see how many incidents of harrasment and eve teasing go on.

 

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