Doctors Predict Fewer Taxi Craniofacial Injuries

By GABRIELLE BIRKNER, Staff Reporter of the Sun
April 2, 2007

With most owners of gas-conserving hybrid taxis opting for security cameras rather than plastic partitions, some doctors expect to see a decline in craniofacial injuries, often caused when passengers slam into the bullet-resistant shields.

"I see not just broken noses, but broken faces," an Upper East Side plastic surgeon, Paul Lorenc, said, referring to partition-related injuries.

Crushed noses, fractured cheekbones and eye sockets, and "stellate," or burst lacerations, are among the most common injuries suffered when a passenger is hurled into the clear partition, Dr. Lorenc said.

Gaping soft tissue injuries are also prevalent, since an edge of a partition's sliding door or its metal track can tear the skin. In the most severe instances, this causes "almost an avulsion" of the nose, a facial plastic and reconstructive surgeon on the Upper East Side, Steven Pearlman, said.

In accidents, yellow cab passengers wearing seatbelts are twice as likely to sustain serious or fatal injuries as seatbelt-wearing riders of other vehicles, according to a 2006 city-commissioned study by Brooklyn-based Schaller Consulting. This gap, which is even wider among non-restrained passengers, could be "linked to the presence of partitions in most medallion cabs, which introduce a very hard surface in an otherwise cushioned environment," the study said.

Though crash rates for taxicabs are one-third less than those for other vehicles, 3,349 medallion taxi accidents involved injuries or fatalities in 2004, the most recent year for which data are available.

Among those seriously injured in an accident, 68% of yellow cab passengers experienced head or face trauma, compared to 49% of those riding in liveries and 35% in other vehicles, another Schaller Consulting study released last year showed.

In an interview, the principal of Schaller Consulting, Bruce Schaller, said partitions create "a very real safety hazard." He said he favors giving more taxi owners the option to use cameras as a crime deterrent.

Since 1994, the majority of yellow taxis in the city's fleet of about 13,000 yellow medallion cabs have been required to have a partition installed for driver protection. Certain driver-owned yellow and livery cabs can choose to install partitions or security cameras, as can owners of the more than 300 hybrid taxis citywide.

Almost all of the hybrid taxi owners have opted for cameras, which at $700 to $800 are about twice as expensive as partitions, a spokesman for the Taxi and Limousine Commission, Allan Fromberg, said.

But partitions will not disappear any time soon. Two new scratch-resistant taxi shields — an L-shaped shield enclosing the driver on all sides, and a flat shield that can accommodate side-impact airbags — could be approved by the Taxi and Limousine Commission as early as April 12.

Novelist Betsy Carter broke her upper and lower jawbones and lost almost all her teeth when she slammed into a partition in a taxi accident in the tunnel under Park Avenue in Midtown. "My lips were ‘filleted' — that was the word my doctor used," she said of the accident, which she wrote about in her 2002 memoir, "Nothing to Fall Back On."

An Upper East Side plastic and reconstructive surgeon, Lloyd Hoffman, said he has seen fewer serious facial injuries in recent years; he attributes the trend to reduced travel speeds due to traffic.

As hybrids become increasingly popular, and as more drivers opt for cameras in place of partitions, facial bone fractures and soft tissue injuries requiring stitches could go down even more. "If people are hitting a cushioned seat, not Plexiglas, that would probably reduce many of the injuries we see," Dr. Hoffman said.

But city taxi driver, Harun Rashid, said the partitions should be cushioned but not abandoned — even though in 2005, one of his passengers hit the partition with such force that her teeth went through her bottom lip.

"A camera cannot stop a bad person from killing you," he said. "And if he does, they might find the guy, they might not."

The partition provides more protection from potentially dangerous passengers, Mr. Rashid said. He touched the clear divider and added: "With these, you can close the door, lock the door, and call the police."