Laura Bogliolo
ROME - They're trying to change jobs, leaving behind the carriages drawn by weary horses, forced to survive in the traffic of the center. Eleven of the 42 carriage drivers working in the Capital have asked the Department of Transportation to change their authorization to a taxi license. These requests date back to December, when directing the Department of Transportation was Sergio Marchi. In recent months, the drivers continued to express a willingness to change jobs and have met with the department. They are not asking for new permits but rather, a change in the type of permits already issued. The possibility of transforming a carriage license by coachmen into that of a Taxi license is due to a municipal resolution adopted a year and a half ago.
"There is a resolution that the council passed in the courtroom,” -said the Minister for Transportation, Antonello Aurigemma, “ Once we receive requests the Department and the Board will only respect the will of the Council, we welcome such requests, and the offices will work to initiate the process that leads to the issuing of of taxi licenses.”
“It’s all set,” explains Luca Gramazio, “The resolution allows this because the service offered by coachmen also concerns public transport." Simply change the type of license from carriage permit to taxi license. The issue of the botticelle is still a very controversial issue. Recently, the Undersecretary of Health, Francesca Martini, has requested that the city the city prepare warning signs in the areas where the coachmen park, which indicate the time schedules and obligations for the drivers. Not only that, Martini, in response to a question of five members, has listed all the measures that the City should have taken and included in the regulations governing the taxi should include the carriages.
Among these improved controls for the protection of animals which are still often forced to operate in the hottest hours and without rest would be the creation of protected routes with the provision of equipped parking areas and provision on operating hours.
Too many problems are still unresolved, including poor sanitary conditions, the crimes committed daily by coachmen with horses going at a trot (a practice forbidden) and next to the driver (the law prohibited for security reasons), as well as horses being forced to work during forbidden hours. In Defense of Animals has also drafted the actress Franca Valeri, who in a letter sent to Il Messaggero, appeals to save the worn out horses, with their head locked to the ground, forever locked in old blinders. "Rome - wrote Valeri - has no more space, or wind for a carriage ride."
