Safe Drivers: Giuliani Administration’s Swift Action Saves Lives

2001

At the start of 2000, New York’s livery cab drivers faced a terrifying reality: ten drivers murdered in the first five months, six of them in just five bloody weeks during March and April. Not since the darkest days of the early 1990s — when 139 drivers were killed between 1990 and 1993 — had the industry seen such relentless violence.

Background / Incident

The wave of killings left immigrant drivers, who make up the vast majority of the city’s livery workforce, gripped by fear. Safety was not only a concern — it became a daily question of survival.

Community Response / Leadership Reaction

Unlike prior administrations, which drivers say hesitated to act, Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the NYPD responded forcefully. The city offered to cover half the cost of safety upgrades, encouraging every livery driver to install bulletproof partitions or video cameras. Within months, more than 10,000 cabs were fitted with partitions, while another 5,000 received security cameras.

At the same time, the NYPD created a dedicated 300-officer task force to patrol high-risk areas, deployed detectives to focus on livery-related homicides, and established designated safety zones in every borough where drivers could seek immediate police help if they felt threatened by passengers.

Fernando Mateo, president of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, praised the unprecedented response: “By far, the Giuliani administration has done more in the last six months than any other administration has in their entire tenure.”

Broader Context

The results were immediate and dramatic. From May 2000 onward, not a single livery driver was murdered — a stunning turnaround from the months of bloodshed earlier in the year.

What critics labeled as an “insensitive” mayor and police force proved, for livery drivers, to be lifesaving allies. For a workforce of mostly minority and immigrant drivers, the city’s aggressive actions offered a long-awaited measure of security and dignity.

Source: NYSFTD News Archive