Not safe
Last week Nicholas Coleridge com- plained in his Diary about the new safety locks on London taxis, fitted after a campaign by Esther Rantzen to stop chil- dren and the disabled falling out. We have had no word from any children or disabled people about whether they welcome this act of charity (which must to the more self-controlled seem unbearably conde- scending) but many other passengers do not. Strong-minded customers have been thrown into a rage on finding their liberty denied them at the end of a journey, while the nervous complain of claustrophia. But the only argument which the authorities, can be expected to listen to is of course the one about safety. Many taxi drivers are not the picture of health. What becomes of a passenger locked in a cab with a dead driver, or a driver severely injured in an accident caused by the treacherous winter conditions? These painful possibilities can- not be dismissed. For any but the most helpless or imbecile passengers, the locks should go.
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