WORLDWIDE TAXI FOCUS from Brazil


FEMALE BRAZILIAN CABBIE STABBED TO DEATH AT TRAFFIC LIGHTS


An Uber driver has been stabbed to death at a set of traffic lights in a gruesome crime. Samira Albino Ribeiro was knifed in the chest when she told armed thieves she didn’t have her mobile phone on her. The seriously injured 32-year-old was able to continue driving to a nearby petrol station to ask for help while her passenger called the emergency services. But she died after the horrific attack in Fortaleza, Ceará State, Brazil. The fatal stabbing happened in Fortaleza on Wednesday night, 30 November. Samira’s family said she was with a passenger when she stopped at the traffic lights and two men approached her, demanding her mobile phone. When she told them she did not have her device with her, she was stabbed in the chest twice from outside the car. Despite being injured, Samira tried to drive to a hospital, but lost control and hit a signpost. She made it to a service station where emergency services arrived but she sadly succumbed to her injuries later in hospital. Samira worked as an accountant and drove a cab in the evenings to supplement her income. No arrests have been made and the investigation continues.


from Australia


TAXI FARES TO GET MORE EXPENSIVE IN NSW TO COMPENSATE CABBIES


Rideshare and taxi trips are about to get more expensive under a New South Wales plan to increase its passenger service levy to help taxi drivers bail out of the industry. Taxi licence holders would be compensated as much as $150,000 for their number plates in Sydney - but it will come at a cost, with the service levy paid by rideshare passengers, taxis and hire cars jumping from $1 to $1.20 for every trip.


PHTM JANUARY 2023


The higher levy would remain in place until 2030 and is expected to net an extra $260million for the ailing taxi industry. It will also help fund the NSW government’s plan to


deregulate taxi services


meaning they will no longer pay exorbitant fees for a taxi licence plate and there will be no limit on how many taxis can operate in one area. Drivers in other state areas will be offered between $40,000 and $195,000, depending on where they live. The government was previously offering com- pensation as low as $25,000 to regional drivers and up to $100,000 for those in the city. NSW Transport Minister, David Elliott, said that the compensation package was ‘the most generous in Australia by a country mile’ and that he’d been unable to find complaint about the levy. “(The levy) will make sure that taxpayers aren’t necessarily burdened with this package,” he said. Mr Elliott asked the NSW Taxi Council to accept the renewed compensation package after the government faced severe backlash for its previous offer.


from South Africa


MILLIONS OF TAXPAYERS’ MONEY FOR TAXI INDUSTRY DISAPPEARS


The South African government’s flagship taxi re-capitalisation scheme, relaunched three years ago, had a twofold objective of removing ageing and unsafe vehicles from South African roads and providing the taxi industry with a raft of economic empowerment interventions. It has failed on both fronts yet more than R1 billion has been spent in just three years. A recent government gazette, signed by Transport Minister Fikile Mabalula, gives drivers of illegally converted Toyota panel vans until 31 January 2023 to hand over their vehicles to the Taxi Recapitalisation South Africa for scrapping or have them impounded. Of the R1 billion that has been set aside for the taxi recapitalisation scheme, only 12% of taxis have been scrapped.


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