MORE THAN 100 taxi drivers have been killed across the country since the explosion of deportee cars began six or so years ago.

A combination of factors has generated a vast expansion of the taxi industry: redundancies have forced many people to hustle a living as taxi owners/operators; the shoddy public transport system has left a clear vacancy for the route taxis; and the cars for the service, the Japanese 'deportees', are easily available at affordable prices.

The growth of the taxi business has come at a heavy price. This must be the only country in the world where the risk of being killed as a taxi operator exceeds the risk of being killed as a security officer on dangerous streets.

The police remain baffled by what seems clearly to be targeted crime. The usual robbery factor may be there. Our investigations have, however, suggested several other important factors. For one thing, cut-throat competition seems to have led quite literally to eliminating the competition. Many operators believe that jealousy is playing a substantial role in the spate of taxi murders. The profile of several murders where the victim was not robbed and the car not stolen certainly seems to lend credence to this view.

A situation where large numbers of mostly young men, some of them ruthless and criminal-minded, are in intense, unregulated and unmonitored competition, lends itself to the violent elimination of competitors, especially in a society where life has become cheap.

The market interface between the taxi business and gangsterism is another useful lead for the police to pursue far more vigorously. We have little doubt that that connection exists. There is also the factor of the stealing of easy access cars like taxi cabs to feed the lucrative, high-demand parts market.

One thing is certain, crime against and within the taxi industry demands serious security attention. We get the impression that much more is known by those within the industry than is being said, another manifestation of the "see an' blind, hear and deaf" mentality which is nurturing crime in other areas. But taxi operators should have learned by this that sealed lips and resistance to regulation today may mean death tomorrow.