I'm not based in the UK but I thought there is an approved cctv program for use in a taxi by someone like "Public Carriage Office" (at least for use in London Taxis). Not sure if the approval system is mandatory but approved systems may be a good start.

Personally I would be looking for a purpose built Taxi system, colour may not always be possible but very important. My wish list would include WDR, Colour with Dynamic Night view with Noise Reduction but it will be hard to get all of these in a tidy camera, you will also require a wide viewing angle and remembering that the targets are going to be quite close to the camera so the majority of traditional cctv cameras will not be suitable as you will be better off with fixed lenses.

If recording, I would suggest a solid state memory recorder as hard drive recorders are much more sensitive to vibration even with special mountings.

Hope that helps.

I think that it is on the increase, and soon we might find it laughable the days when people complained about the total number of cctv cameras going up from 2 million to 4 million. But there we are.

You can easily justify the need for cctv in taxis considering how many runaways you get and people being sick and doing all sorts.

You can buy the things quite easily at most xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx installers

I had a cabbie enquire about this recently.

Apparently there were strict rules regarding access to recorded images, imposed by the Hackney licencing body in his area (council).

They would let him install cameras in his cab, but there was to be no recording of sound, the recordings were to be encrypted and he (driver) was to have no way of accessing the footage (only the local council were allowed to review in the event of an incident).

I swerved it.

Have you checked your local council for such advice? Might be worth a phone call to avoid landing yourself in the brown stuff.

Edited February 17, 200917 yr by Hooner

Well,

over a year has passed and I've still not got CCTV in the cab

In that time I've had a couple of instances of drunken women wetting themselves all over the seats, a bottle of red whine poured over the carpet, a couple of instances of vomiting, a couple of assaults on driver(s) and several bilkings (running off without payment)

With so much conflicting advice (and some ********) its been impossible to find a local company who have inspired me with sufficient confidence that they knew what they were doing to actually persuade me to go ahead.

I still have my dvr, a couple of 600tvl b/w pinhole cameras (very low lux) sitting on my conservatory floor gathering dust

I recently had some power+bnc leads made up ready to install, only to find the power jack plugs which are supposedly the same size are noticably slack fit when connected to the cameras leads, I say noticably slack as the plug/socket connection just falls apart, (I did wonder if sleeving the connection with heat shrink might be sufficient?)

Our local council don't have a particular policy/legal position on CCTV in cabs (about the only thing they don't legislate and make a charge(tax) for inspecting)

Edited June 19, 201015 yr by BigBlackTaxi-owner

i would minimise joints due to the vibaration issue. but its not hard to install it in a vehicle