A male front-seat passenger in a taxi attacked the driver and ripped the vehicle’s audio and video recorder off the dashboard on Thursday, after he refused to comply with the legal requirement to wear the seat belt, the Transport Bureau (DSAT) has announced.
The bureau did not identify the cabbie’s gender nor where the passenger is from.
According to the Road Traffic Law, light vehicles’ drivers and front-seat passengers must wear a seat belt, namely private cars and taxis as well as vehicles with up to nine seats.
According to the law regulating the city’s taxi sector and its supplementary regulations, every taxi must be equipped with an intelligent terminal system consisting of various devices such as a meter, a Global Positioning System (GPS), an audio and video recorder, and a device for calling the police.
A DSAT statement on Friday said that when picking up the man, who chose to sit in the front passenger seat, at a taxi rank outside a hotel in the wee hours of Thursday, the driver told him to buckle up by reminding him that the law requires front-seat passengers to use the seat belts.
However, the statement said, the man refused to comply with the cabbie’s requirement, resulting in an argument during which the man attacked the driver, who then reported the case to the police.
The statement said that before the police arrived, the passenger “forcibly” ripped out the taxi’s intelligent terminal device which included an audio and video recorder, and threw it out of the vehicle.
Afterwards, the statement said, the police arrived and “dealt with the incident”, in which the cabbie was injured and was then taken to hospital for outpatient treatment.
The statement said that after examining the damaged device, the company that carries out the maintenance of the intelligent terminal systems installed in the city’s taxis “preliminarily confirmed” that the data recorded and stored in the device had not been leaked to a third party.
The ripped-out device and its audio and video recordings were passed to the police for investigation, the statement said.
The statement condemned the passenger for attacking the cabbie and damaging the taxi’s intelligent terminal device. Stressing that any commercial driver’s safety should be fully protected, the statement pledged that the bureau will fully cooperate with the police in their investigation and evidence gathering.
The statement said that in addition to filing a criminal complaint against the man, the bureau will also fine him 30,000 patacas for damaging the taxi’s intelligent terminal device in compliance with the taxi law.
According to the taxi law, those who have damaged a taxi’s intelligent terminal device or interfered with its operation, or collected, copied, deleted, destroyed, damaged, or modified the data recorded in the device, face a fine of 30,000 patacas.
This undated file photo provided by the Public Security Police (PSP) shows a taxi’s intelligent terminal device.
