OCHO RIOS, St Ann - Some cabbies, convinced that cops are more likely to prosecute them than the drivers of privately operated vehicles, are trading in their red public passenger licence plates for the white ones used on private cars.

The switch, in effect, results in a number of cabs operating as 'robot' taxies, an activity that the Transport Authority (TA) and the police have long been trying to curb.

Yesterday, the TA said it had no knowledge of the plate switching, but according to general secretary for the National Association of Taxi Operators, Egeton Newman, more than 70 cabbies across the island have already made the switch.

"Across the length and breadth of Jamaica, they are taking off their red plates and putting on white plates because of the situation now with the police and also with the Transport Authority," Newman said.

It's all a part of cabbies' attempt, he said, to evade prosecution by cops who they think are deliberately targeting them. With the white plates affixed to their cars, they freely pick up riders who they pass off as non-paying passengers, he explained.

"They can pick up four persons in a car and gone, once there is no exchange of money (within the cops' sight)," Newman explained. "An exchange of money usually takes place between two stops, so the police would not see them exchange any money so they have to allow them to go ahead."

Drivers of privately operated vehicles are given more leeway, and are more likely to be given the benefit of the doubt, he argued.

"With the red plate operator, anything you do you are being ticketed by the police, because you are known as a taxi operator," the association president said. He was speaking, last week, during a public meeting at the Anglican Church Hall in St Ann's Bay under the theme "The future of public transportation in Jamaica".

According to Newman, the licence plate switching began among small groups of operators about two months ago. It has now become more popular, he said, attributing the increasing use of the ploy to continuing harassment by the police.

The plate switch, he said, was not yet widespread enough to attract the serious attention of the cops.

"If it does (get to alarming levels), then we are in serious trouble with police and we don't want to go there," Newman emphasised, adding that the association was trying to address the issue internally.

His aim, he said, was to try and get the cabbies who had switched to white plates to revert to using the red plates specifically assigned to public passenger vehicles.

"We encouraged them to put back their red plates," Newman said yesterday. "The response was not a hundred per cent what we were looking for, but, of course, persons were saying they're concerned and this is the only way they can earn a livelihood."

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