The driver and passenger have a fare estimator, and if money paid does not accord with the actual metered trip the driver and passenger reconcile the difference.

Clearly this system combats late night drunken escapades of fare evasion and, while it won't stop fare evasion or assaults, it might help.

Cabbies work long hours, in an unhealthy existence of sedentary lifestyle, coupled with a poor diet and the night-time risks. For the effort they put into earning a living, it must be heart breaking to be robbed or to lose a big fare through evasion.

Video cameras above the windscreen are a help, but only in the aftermath. They don't lesson the traumatic impact of drunks and their bravado in evading a fare. From where they sit cabbies are always in a vulnerable position.

Therefore we expect the state government to take a proactive interest, and they had better show interest before a victim driver, and their mates, are forced to call a lawyer.

Airline tickets are prepaid, otherwise you won't board the aircraft. Bus fares are different, but for cabbies the price paid can be in the hundreds of dollars or more, in lost income or through prevention from driving because of injury etc.

There's a Hollywood style, romantic notion of a passenger in a yellow taxi, who alights, flips a coin or presses a few notes into the cabby's hand and quips - keep the change.

If only it was the still the case. These days the cabby is a late-night apparition, seen through blurred vision, and ripe for a rip-off at the end of a drunken night, when ironically the drunk has paid restaurants and publicans good money for a good time.

This is the hour when we expect the government to exercise its duty of care.