TAXI drivers are looking at ways to fight back against vandals following a spate of attacks targeting Tamworth’s cabs.
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Tamworth Taxi director and local cabbie, Greg Rowland, said six taxis were “deliberately targeted by juveniles”, with stones hurled from the railway overpass on Gunnedah Road.
Another cab was also targeted near the Tamworth Regional Playground on Kable Ave.
“When it happens one or two times, you can assume it might be isolated,” Mr Rowland said.
“When it happens five or six times, you can assume there’s a pattern and it needs to be nipped in the bud quickly.”
The matter was raised at a recent Crime Prevention Working Group meeting, where members agreed additional lighting for the overpass near Stewart Ave and Warral Rd was needed.
Mr Rowland said the incidents were causing serious worries.
“Public safety was becoming a real concern, someone was going to get killed,” he said.
Mr Rowland reported there were passengers in the taxis for “most of the cases”.
The director believed “the matter appears to be arrested” through the combined efforts of local police, council and the taxi co-op.
Working group chairman, Russell Webb, was very disappointed with the attacks on local taxis, and pointed to some longer-term solutions.
“It’s a sign, to me, of our social fabric falling apart,” Cr Webb said.
“Longer term, we want to try and keep the youth of the city occupied rather than being out vandalising.”