Taxi Cab Drivers

[eazyle]

Can taxi cab drivers be armed? Or the only way they can carry a firearm is with a CCW? Since their job invovles a high probability of being assaulted, robbed etc.?

[jbolton]

No commercial driver can carry a gun.

[UBFRAGD]

Taxi drivers are armed in the sense they are driving two tons of metal. Forgot the SF jihadi already?

[grammaton76]

No commercial driver can carry a gun.

Is this penal code or just commonly held company and/or insurance policy?

[Kingofthehill]

Is this penal code or just commonly held company and/or insurance policy?

Curious as well... i have a commercial drivers license (Class A). Does that mean i can never get a CCW?

JOe

[CSACANNONEER]

Is this penal code or just commonly held company and/or insurance policy?

I believe there is a federal law prohibiting truck drivers from having a firearm anywhere in their truck, excluding thier cargo.

[grammaton76]

I believe there is a federal law prohibiting truck drivers from having a firearm anywhere in their truck, excluding thier cargo.

Interesting. I suspect if this is the case, it will not be relevant to taxi cab drivers, but worth knowing about.

[audihenry]

I believe there is a federal law prohibiting truck drivers from having a firearm anywhere in their truck, excluding thier cargo.

Just about every truck driver I know - and I know a few - are armed, law or no law. You can't blame them given some of the places they have to go.

Let's also not forget 1992.

[HowardW56]

I believe there is a federal law prohibiting truck drivers from having a firearm anywhere in their truck, excluding thier cargo.

Most of the truckers I know keep guns in the cab...

[BroncoBob]

Most of the truckers I know keep guns in the cab...

I second that, I know many who do. Long haulers don't take any chances.

[Librarian]

People v. Marotta (1981) 128 Cal.App.3d Supp. 1 , 180 Cal.Rptr. 611

In any ordinary sense the taxicab here is as much a place of business as a store in a fixed location. This is where the cab driver worked and collected his fees. The driver had no other business location which the cab served to facilitate, such as a store's delivery truck, where the truck is not the location of the enterprise, but merely the means to facilitate the store's business.

The obvious purpose of the "place of business" exception in these code sections is recognition of the need of business operators to protect their property. [128 Cal.App.3d Supp. 6]

The term "place of business" has no set or established meaning in California case or code law. fn. 2 Importing into these words the limitation of a fixed geographic location is unsupported in the law. In California's highly mobile culture many business enterprises have no fixed geographic location. Even such staid institutions as banks often use mobile facilities.

A claim that our interpretation of the meaning of these statutes would present endless problems to law enforcement or grossly proliferate public possession of guns because of California's many and varied mobile places of business, ought to properly be addressed to the Legislature. While we, as citizens, deplore the ominous growth in handgun possession in our society, this deep concern is not the proper focus of judges duty-bound to ascertain what these laws mean and how they must be applied in a specific criminal case. Had the Legislature intended to limit the "place of business" exception to fixed geographic locations, or had it intended to exclude vehicles from the compass of the words "place of business," it could easily have done so. We do not perceive that our function here is to pass a law making illegal conduct which we personally deplore.

So far as I am aware, no intervening cases apply, and no amendments to the Penal Code have changed Marotta.

Unless something has changed of which I am unaware, taxi drivers are exempt from 12025 and 12031(h), while working.

[UBFRAGD]

Armed taxi drivers. You have to be freakin' kidding, right? I'd rather see armed dishwashers than armed cabbies. I did some work at a cab yard recently. Somalis, Croats, bottom of the barrel Ruskies, Yeminis, yeah, those guys have great American morals and CCW skills.

Remember that cabbie who was killing women in SF a couple years ago?

Taxis are like clowns, liberal educationalists, and government workers--to be avoided at all costs due to the people the occupation attracts.

Not to mention those driving skills--no wonder most taxi yards have more non-working vehicles than runners!! DOH!!

[quagmiles]

Does the cab drivers bad breath count as being armed?

[jbolton]

I have a friend who owns a Transport company. Limos, sedans, bus. I ask him if his drivers were able to carry firearms, if went through the correct legal channels, and received a CCW. He said that they are not aloud per regulation, and restriction with having a commercial drivers license. Truck drivers are not exempt, and can not even carry knives or bats. This was also confirmed by another friend of mine who is in the highway patrol. Some may say this is all second hand info. It is. I do believe my sources are credible but check some sites online.

[CSACANNONEER]

Armed taxi drivers. You have to be freakin' kidding, right? I'd rather see armed dishwashers than armed cabbies. I did some work at a cab yard recently. Somalis, Croats, bottom of the barrel Ruskies, Yeminis, yeah, those guys have great American morals and CCW skills.

Remember that cabbie who was killing women in SF a couple years ago?

Taxis are like clowns, liberal educationalists, and government workers--to be avoided at all costs due to the people the occupation attracts.

Not to mention those driving skills--no wonder most taxi yards have more non-working vehicles than runners!! DOH!!

So tell us how you really feel about taxi drivers.