Many tend to imagine cities to be a place where people keep to themselves and strangers don’t talk to strangers. The fact is that in any given day strangers spend time with strangers, sometimes alone, in a closed room on thousands of occasions. It is called a taxi ride.

Some taxi drivers like to share their views on current political issues. Some passengers like to chat with their cabbies about their daily routines. Some rides are almost silent except at the beginning when the passengers announce their destinations and at the end when the drivers tell them the fares.

It is rare, but every once in a while things turn out wrong.

Last month a passenger was almost frightened to death by a taxi driver in New Taipei City after a dispute over the volume of the radio. According to the passengers’ account, the cabbie rejected her request to turn down the volume and asked her to get out, saying that he had the right to do whatever he wanted in his cab. But as she left the taxi driver lunged at her and demanded her to pay up. The scared passenger ducked behind a motorcyclist who was passing by. The cabbie did not give up, as he cursed and insulted the passenger until she finally yielded and gave him the NT$70 ($2.40) taxi fare despite the fact that taxi drivers cannot charge for service they prematurely terminate.

Sometimes it is the taxi drivers who find themselves victims. The most obvious case would be the recent scandal involving famous entertainer Makiyo. She and her friend allegedly beat their driver almost to death after an argument. While the media focused on the details of the celebrity case, the Makiyo event is just the most prominent example of the danger taxi drivers face in taking intoxicated passengers.

At the moment these passengers and cabbies in danger could only count on themselves and on the good luck of meeting courageous passers-by or, like the Makiyo case, at least by having the aggression against them recorded by surveillance cameras. But more can be done to provide a safer environment.

In the mainland, such protection comes in the form of a menacing metal barrier separating the drivers and passengers. Such heavy-handed measures, however, do not send the best signal about a modernized nation.

Many modernised countries try to solve the security problem by installing more and more surveillance cameras. While they can be handy in times of accidents, these cameras can also be an invasion of people’s privacy and an ungainly example of a police state.

There is actually a smarter solution to the problem. A nation has no reason to be obsessed with roadside cameras when many people are already carrying portable video recorders of their own.

As the population of gadget-owning people continuously grows in Taiwan, the authorities should consider using these camera and geotag-enabled devices in crime fighting and crime prevention. One of the first considerations can be the launch of a mobile app that allows witnesses or the people involved to record video or audio live at crucial moments of potential crime events or accidents.

Such an app could also enable users to report the incidents to the authorities digitally with precise geotags, which can greatly shorten authorities’ response times. The best part of such an application would be that it will minimize privacy invasion as the users are in control of the process. The recording will only begin on the users’ initiation.

Theoretically, the mere announcement of such device could help drive the crime rate down as the knowledge of the probable existence of a video-recording and police-reporting witness would act as a deterrent.

Of course, more discussions and considerations are needed to ensure that the authorities are capable of handling such technology and to minimize the possibility of misuse. For example, users should be warned of the legal consequences of filing false reports with the device. The app should be designed to provide quick access yet have the proper mechanisms to prevent launching by mistake.

Some will no doubt question the feasibility of such an innovation. But that should not discourage the attempt to utilise technology to provide a better life. It would be a waste if geotags and video recordings were used only as entertainment or amusements on Facebook posts.

(The China Post (Taiwan))

(Asia News Network)