It's time to make Chicago taxi passengers -- and drivers -- feel safer -- and more comfortable

Sexual assaults by taxi drivers may be extremely rare – 7,000 Chicago cabs taking only 30 passengers a day multiplies to over 76 million rides a year.  But female passengers want to feel safe – and taxi drivers want to actually be safe. 

I have hacked in New York City, Chicago and San Francisco.  The one safety feature that made me feel safe – the only one – was the on board/satellite camera in San Francisco.  It made you feel like someone is with you.

Partitions in Chicago are pointless because everyone leaves them open anyway.  They just deprive the passengers of heat in the winter, air conditioning in the summer, not to mention enough room for their feet.  Nobody wants them – except maybe management, which may not want to pay for cameras.

The large Crown Vics now going the way of the cavernous old Checkers may mark the perfect time to make the switch that should have been done a decade or more ago – to a security mode that can make passengers and drivers feel safer and more comfortable too.