TAXI-CABS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 259, 2 November 1933, Page 23

TAXI-CABS.

STRUCTURAL PROTECTION.

ATTITUDE IN WELLINGTON.

Taxi-car design is a subject which has not occupied the attention of the Wellington City Council recently, though a great deal has been said about taxi colours and meters, and so on, states the "Post," in reference to the proposal made by the Auckland chief traffic inspector, Mr. G. R. Hogan, to the City Council that the by-laws should contain a provision requiring some form of structural protection of taxi-car drivers, so making impossible a repetition of the ghastly taxi murder at Mount Boskill recently. In 1915 the council. decided that a taxicab should be a taxi-cab, and instructed its officers to draw up specifications for a standard cab which would ultimately displace all others. The specifications, which were based on Scotland Yard requirements, did provide for a partition between passenger and driver, but the war was on and the idea was perforce dropped. When the taxi business expanded into company form in Wellington some years ago, the pioneer company imported a number of car 3 of conventional taxi design, with partitions, but as these machines have grown old in service they have been replaced by standard cars, and partitioned taxis are to-day in a small minority. As far as is known the Wellington Council is not considering any compulsory alteration j of taxi interiors.