Cynic wrote:
> On Wed, 07 May 2008 09:24:15 GMT, Palindrome wrote:
>
>> Like it or not, and you probably won't, earlier this year a taxi company
>> here made a point of *offering* a female driver for a late-evening
>> pick-up, once they had identified that the sole passenger would be female.
>
>> It shocked me. I'm not sure what it did for the morale of their male
>> taxi drivers..
>
>> Things are changing ..and not for the better.
>
> It is simply pandering to a perception. I neither approve nor
> disapprove of what a company does to try to increase its market share.
How about when it preferentially gives work to women that men could do
equally well?
Would, say, offering a *white* driver or a *British* driver be just,
"What a company does to try to increase its market share"?
> It is only when rules that I consider to be completely unnecessary are
> imposed by the government that I disapprove.
>
> I have little doubt that on average there is a greater risk of a male
> committing a .ual assault than a female. Therefore a woman taxi
> driver presents less risk to a lone passenger than a man. But what is
> also true is that the risk of being assaulted by *any* taxi driver is
> very small indeed - sufficiently small that there is no need to take
> steps to reduce it further.
Exactly. On a statistical basis, a black male driver could be argued to
present an even greater risk. Is that a reason not to employ them for
taxi work?
>
> OTOH there is a greater risk of a female taxi driver being assaulted
> (.ually or otherwise) by a passenger than a male driver.
I simply don't believe that. Do you have any evidence that female taxi
drivers suffer more attacks than male ones? Female *bus* drivers suffer
a much lower rate of attack than male ones, on the same routes at the
same times. There was a bit of a furore, hereabouts, because a bus
company tried to give female drivers a disproportionately high number of
"particularly risky" routes. They backed down.
> The risk
> in that case is *not* insignificant at certain times and places. I
> hope that that fact has been factored into the equation by the taxi
> company concerned.
>
--
Sue |