TACKLING HATE CRIME IMAGINE A WORLD WITH NO HATE FOR TAXI DRIVERS!
Nobody should ever have to put up with abuse when they go to work but unfortunately, this is a daily reality for most taxi drivers. In any other profession, there would be a national outcry at the abuse suffered by workers but because it’s the taxi industry, it’s often swept under the carpet. Albatross Cars has formulated a 2-step process in an attempt to combat this issue.
I am Ateeq Naseem and my experience within the taxi trade began in the 90s, where I started out as a 14-year- old working in a taxi office on Normanton Road in Derby. It wasn’t quite Henry Hill in Goodfellas, but back then, taxi companies were not the nicest places to work and there was certainly a ‘Wild West’ theme to them.
It was a different era and when a driver experienced abuse, we were always told by management to ignore it and move on as it was considered a waste of time to take it further. There wasn’t much that could be done as it was essentially the driver’s word against the passenger. It must also be said that it wasn’t seen as a serious crime by many within the police, an attitude that has thankfully changed.
Abuse was accepted as part of being a taxi driver and you had to learn to put up with hate crimes as an unfortunate aspect of the job.
Fast forward to 2022 and I’ve experienced first-hand the transformation of the taxi industry over the past 25 years as I am now a senior manager at Albatross Cars, Derbyshire’s biggest taxi company with over 450 drivers.
My position and experiences within the taxi trade over the previous quarter of a century have given me unique insights into what we can collectively do to combat hate crime within the taxi industry through two simple steps and this is something that we hope other taxi companies throughout the UK will implement on behalf of their drivers.
HATE CRIME – ON THE RISE
According to a recent study conducted by Dr Karamat Iqbal (an academic who works in race, equality & diversity), a shocking 83% of taxi drivers have experienced what would be termed as a ‘hate crime’. Those of us within the industry will unfortunately not be surprised by that statistic.
My own experience last week reinforces this reality. Whilst in the call centre, I was called a ‘F**king P*ki’ by a disgruntled customer and it’s a lot worse for the drivers who are dealing with passengers.
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Hate crime within the taxi trade is on the rise and whilst this can be attributed to some extent to people becoming more aware and reporting these incidents, there has also been a significant negative stereotyping pedalled by the media against taxi drivers, which makes them an easy target for abuse.
Of the 124,091 hate crimes recorded by police in the UK last year, a shocking 79% fell within the race and religion strand, with 45% of religious hate crime against the Muslim community. According to Hardyal Dhindsa, former Derbyshire Police & Crime Commissioner as much as 30-40% of hate crimes are not reported.
The psychological and mental aspect of hate crimes on taxi drivers is one of the saddest consequences. Many accept and tolerate the abuse but deep down, it’s inevitable that emotional scars are created which in turn affect every aspect of their lives.
Dr Karamat Iqbal has carried out extensive research into the racial abuse of taxi drivers after seeing a shocking video of a taxi driver subjected to a racial rant from a passenger (his book ‘When no one is Looking’ is an excellent resource explaining this phenomenon).
Dr Iqbal’s research involved interviews with taxi drivers and organisations, as well as an online questionnaire, completed by 272 drivers from around the country. His findings revealed racial abuse is “normal and frequent” for most drivers and they often keep it to themselves.
This has led to higher levels of distress and trauma for taxi drivers. However, the mental health needs of this largely multicultural workforce have gone unnoticed, although Albatross Cars has tried to combat this vigorously over the years through various schemes and initiatives for our taxi drivers (including free swimming and cricket sessions, health checks and other fitness activities).
The negative media coverage only exacerbates this issue, especially with the increase in Islamophobic content in recent years; a point that has to be made given the large proportion of taxi drivers who profess the Islamic faith and the large percentage of hate crime specifically against Muslims.
Members of minorities such as the LGTBQ+ community, Sikhs, Hindus and immigrants are also disproportionately higher victims of hate crimes and it’s important to take a unified and consistent response.
We held a focus group recently where we invited some Albatross taxi drivers at random to tell us about their
OCTOBER 2022 PHTM
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