Bulletproofing cab drivers?

The New York Federation of Taxi Drivers says that cab drivers encounter 300 robberies and assaults each month, a growing occupational hazard that has some wearing bulletproof vests. A dozen drivers of livery cabs in tough areas of the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens will don police-issue bulletproof vests to protect themselves from big city crime. In June, the murder of a cab driver grabbed headlines, causing the Federation’s leader, Fernando Mateo, to claim “whatever we can do to help improve the safety of our drivers is something that we will do.” Mayor Michael Bloomberg dismissed the idea that cab drivers needed bulletproofing; Mateo responded: “Neither the mayor nor the [police] Commissioner drives a cab.” Read more in a New York Daily News article on this prospective market.