纽约为出租司机发防弹背心

为应对频发的出租车司机遇袭案，纽约出租车司机联合会近日宣布将为出租车司机发放防弹背心，以保证他们的安全。据悉，该计划将率先在布鲁克林及皇后区等案件高发地区试运行，在该区域运营的电召出租车司机将会领到能够穿在衬衫或者外套里面的警用防弹衣。该联合会会长指出，纽约市每个月有将近300起出租车司机被抢或遇袭的案件，他表示会向纽约警察总署求助，为更多出租车司机申请防弹衣。对于此举，纽约市长却表示是“反应过度”，称“没有必要这样做”。出租车司机联合会会长则反击称“开出租车的不是市长也不是警察局长”，只有出租车司机们了解个中黑白。

A handful of New York cabbies are to wear bullet-proof vests as part of a pilot programme in response to assaults on drivers, their representative said on Monday.

Initially, a dozen police-issue flak jackets, which fit under a shirt or jacket, will be given to drivers of livery cabs in tough areas of the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens, NY1 television reported.

The plan responds to the June murder of a taxi driver in the Bronx neighbourhood. A driver in the Queens neighbourhood was shot and severely wounded during a robbery in December.

Fernando Mateo, head of the New York Federation of Taxi Drivers, says that some 300 robberies and assaults against cab drivers take place every month.

"One shooting is a lot and whatever we can do to help improve the safety of our drivers is something that we will do," he told news site Examiner.com.

Livery cabs, often painted black, respond to telephone requests, while the city's more famous yellow cabs pick up passengers from the streets.

Mr Mateo said in a television interview: "we're going to reach out to NYPD, to individual police officers," with a request for more of the dark vests.

However, city officials said the idea was overkill.

"I do not think they need to do that," Mayor Michael Bloomberg was quoted by Examiner.com as saying.

Mr Mateo responded that drivers knew best: "Neither the mayor nor the commissioner drive a cab."

Reflecting tensions over driver safety in New York, Mr Mateo caused a stir in December when he urged drivers to think twice before picking up African American or Hispanic passengers.

"You know sometimes it's good that we are racially profiled because the God's-honest truth is that 99 per cent of the people that are robbing, stealing, killing these drivers are blacks and Hispanics," he said.

Mr Mateo was accused by some commentators of racism, but others in the city supported him, while he claimed he could not be racist since he was part Hispanic and part African American himself.

Vocabulary:

livery cab: respond to telephone requests, 接待电话叫车乘客的出租车，一般译作“电召车”。