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GPS Requirements Eliminated for Bethel Cabs

 Bethel City Council unanimously voted last week to stop requiring cabs to have Global Positioning System equipment.
Dean Swope
/
KYUK

  

The Bethel City Council unanimously voted last week to stop requiring cabs to have Global Positioning System (GPS) equipment.  

 

Public Safety and Transportation Commission Chair Jared Karr explained why the Commission recommended getting rid of the requirement:

 

“It’s a useless ordinance that provides no benefit to the police department, to the city, to the cab drivers, to anybody, so that’s one of the main reasons that we decided to send this to council to strike,” said Karr.

 

The original idea was to help police know where cabs were in the event of problems, but the technology proved expensive and nobody used it. Bethel Police Chief Burke Waldron told the Council that it wouldn’t hurt investigations to remove GPS systems, as they can only tell where a vehicle was after the fact. Language was also removed requiring police to have a GPS monitoring site.