Bridget Reed Morawski
WASHINGTON — (WMAL) Roy Spooner, the general manager of DC Yellow Cab, only has one concern for the new taxi cab panic button regulations, but it’s a major one.
Anyone who is pressing the silent alarm is going to expect emergency services to locate them, but taxi dispatchers just aren’t trained to handle emergency situations.
“We are not equipped to handle emergency situations,” said Spooner. “We believe that that’s much more suited to any of the other agencies in the city to deal with.” He fears that if they were unable to provide appropriate assistance to a customer because of the severity of an emergency request that the company could be held liable for anything that occurs to the passenger.
DC Yellow Cab already fields daily requests for assistance from their passengers, but these requests are much more mundane.
“Right now, our passengers call us every day from the back of a cab and say ‘we may have an issue with a fare,’ or ‘can you assist me with this?’” said Spooner. “The way we’re going to handle it is the way of assistance.”
Spooner says that regardless of any potential changes to the silent alarm, in either design or intention, the company intends to still assist passengers with any dilemmas. However, he hopes that most passengers will still resort to 911 should the need arise.
“I’m quite sure that anyone with a cellphone in their hand [and] is in any immediate emergency, they will certainly call 911 before pressing a button on a silent alarm,” said Spooner.
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