Rules help cabbies remain safe

By Ed Runyan | July 30, 2009 at 12:08a.m.

Photo by: Ed Runyan

Photo

Robert Reizian, president of New Valley Taxi, stands by one of his cabs. Reizian says his employees are trained to avoid being robbed, but one employee failed to follow proper procedures when she was robbed last weekend.

As a cabdriver, Robert Reizian has developed certain habits to remain safe.

By Ed Runyan

WARREN — Robert Reizian, president of New Valley Taxi, has driven taxi cabs in Detroit and Youngstown for most of the last seven years.

Even when he drove cabs in some of the most dangerous areas of Youngstown, however, he never was robbed.

He credits that streak to being aware of dangerous situations and following simple rules that he now teaches to the cabbies who work for him.

Because his drivers usually follow the rules, they have mostly avoided being victims of what Tim Bowers, the acting Warren police chief, says is a rising tide of armed robberies this month. New Valley Taxi drivers have been robbed twice this summer.

So far in July, the Warren Police Department has recorded 16 armed robberies. According to 2008 statistics, an average month for robberies of any kind — armed and unarmed — is 14.

Bowers said this week he suspects economic conditions are partly to blame for the crimes. In June, Warren had the highest unemployment rate of any city in the state at 16.6 percent.

A New Valley Taxi driver was robbed last weekend because the driver failed to follow one of Reizian’s rules: Pick up riders only after they have emerged from the address provided.

“A legitimate person comes out of a house,” Reizian said. Plus, anyone who gives his correct address is unlikely to commit a crime afterward because it would be too easy to track him down, Reizian said.

The driver was summoned to the Tod’s Crossing senior citizens apartments near 4th Street and Tod Avenue Southwest at about 9:30 p.m. Saturday. The driver unlocked the door for two men who were “sitting on a gas well” near the address she was given.

One of the men got into the back seat, pointed a gun at her neck and said, “Give me all your money.”

The man got about $50 while the other man stood near the driver’s door. Afterward, both men — described as being in their early 20s — ran toward the Hampshire House apartments nearby.

Reizian said he agrees that more people are committing robberies this summer than in the past and blames the local economy.

Reizian believes taxi drivers are likely to remain safe, however. For one thing, many of the criminals are his customers: “What are they going to do, rob me one day and call for a ride the next?”

Reizian, who sometimes still drives fares when necessary, says he’s developed certain habits that stay with him no matter where he’s driving. One of those is giving himself options in case of trouble.

For example, when he is waiting in a drive-through lane at a restaurant, he never fails to leave enough room for his car to maneuver out of the line, and he keeps his wheels turned in the direction of an escape route.

He also tells drivers to never pick up fares when they are in a “group or gang of people,” and to keep the vehicle in the street; never pull into the driveway.

Reizian said it’s a misperception that night is more dangerous than day, saying he thinks there are actually more daytime cab robberies.

Though it’s common to hear that certain companies have declared certain areas unsafe for their employees, that is not the case with New Valley, Reizian said. “There is no area we will not serve,” he said. “Our policy is it’s up to the driver.”

About the only type of fare New Valley declines is one involving people involved in domestic disputes, he said.

Though Reizian said his drivers have remained relatively safe during the upswing in Warren’s crime, he’s hearing from government workers who deal with low-income clients that another hurdle awaits on the horizon that could increase crime even more.

The federal government approved extensions of unemployment payments in recent months, but by this fall and winter, those payments likely will run out, he said.

“This is the kind of industry that attracts that type of [crime],” he said.

runyan@vindy.com