Following a recent spate of thefts from taxis and a knife attack on a driver, Palma town hall and the police are looking at measures designed to minimise taxi-driver risk. One of these will be the offer of self-defence classes. This was raised at a meeting to discuss driver safety that was called by the town hall.
Toni Bauzá of one of the various taxi-driver associations described the meeting as having been very productive. He noted, however, that the best advice to drivers is to not offer any resistance if they are threatened.
Under consideration is the installation of cameras inside cars and on the windscreens. The transport councillor Joan Ferrer said that there will be consultation in order to establish if camera recordings can be used in possible legal cases.
Some cars do at present have panic buttons to be used if drivers are threatened. A proposed improvement on this was a mobile phone application for geolocating cars and enabling rapid response by police.
There has been a total of thirty thefts from taxis in the past month or so, while there have been two knife attacks during the year.