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 Editorials | Issues | May 2007 
Mexico Weighs All-Women Taxis
 David Ovalle - McClatchy Newspapers
| Alejandra Olvera, 37, drives her taxi in the suburb of Magdalena Contreras in Mexico City. She plans to take part in a proposed service that would shuttle women using only female drivers. (David Ovalle/MCT)
Risky Rides
Taxi safety is a perennial concern in Mexico City, where roughly half the 8.6 million residents are female. Faced with the specter of kidnappers or robbers, tourists and residents are warned against hailing taxis from the street. Instead, they are told to call reputable companies to be picked up or catch cabs at official street sites.
McClatchy Newspapers |
Mexico City — Alejandra Olvera said she's been a taxi victim twice.
Fifteen years ago, she said, she was a passenger when a taxi driver pulled into a dark industrial district and tried to grope her before she escaped.
Now, as one of a handful of female taxi drivers in Mexico City, Olvera recently pulled over for a man. He gruffly waved her on, telling her no female would drive him.
"It made me laugh," Olvera said. "Mexico is such a macho country."
Olvera isn't Mexico City's first female taxi driver, but her stories help explain why some Mexico City lawmakers are proposing a new all-woman taxi service. Their belief: Women are safer with drivers and passengers of the same sex.
The capital's government estimated at least 400 women last year were assaulted in taxis. But that number is unreliable because many women don't report assaults, let alone offensive ogling or flagrant flirtation.
It's not the first time Mexico City has made moves to safeguard women: Certain platforms and cars in Mexico City's subway system are reserved for women and children and have been for decades. And Mexico City isn't the first city to propose such a service: A private venture in London known as Ladies Taxi offers gender-exclusive rides.
But the proposed municipal intervention illustrates the concern about taxi safety in a city where rising crime has prompted official warnings for people to steer clear of taxis cruising the streets for passengers.
Amid high-profile liberal changes such as the approval of gay civil unions and first-trimester abortions, lawmakers hail the all-female taxi service as a small, if important, step in empowering women in Mexico's traditionally male culture. There are about 70 or so registered female taxi drivers in Mexico City, a droplet in a sea of 104,000 registered taxi drivers.
Under the proposal by Mexico City assemblyman Humberto Morgan, female drivers would form a loose government-sponsored organization that would operate primarily in business corridors with high concentrations of female workers.
The drivers would undergo criminal background checks, and their cars would be equipped with radios to connect them directly to police dispatchers.
Instead of the old green-and-white Volkswagen Beetle or the newer red-and-white sedans, each ladies' taxi would be painted pink.
"We need to change the perspectives of transportation here. We need better-quality drivers, and, most of all, we need security," said Morgan, a member of the left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).
The bill has been presented to city assembly committees, and Morgan expects the full assembly will approve it this summer.
There are questions from drivers. Some worry that the pink color will make them easier targets for assailants. Others want to know if they'll be allowed to pick up men. Olvera said she thinks it's unlikely that any Mexican man will want to ride in a pink taxi.
Olvera and her friend Luz Maria Ortega are the only female taxi drivers in the hilly Mexico City suburb of Magdalena Contreras.
Both own their own private taxis and both keep their hair short, so as not to attract too much attention.
Female clients, they say, often take their phone numbers for future rides.
"They see I'm a woman, and they feel more comfortable," Olvera said. |
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