The attacks on taxi drivers in the city have become less frequent since a program launched this past August 31 allows the police to randomly detain their vehicles and approach passengers to interrogate and search them, with the driver's consent.

The program was a reaction to fatal attacks on various taxi drivers in the Bronx and Yonkers within the past few years. On August 31, the NYPD arrested a 22-year-old man in relation to the death of taxi driver Ndiaye Amadau, killed two weeks previously.

Fernando Mateo and José Viloria, a spokesman and the president of the New York State Taxi Federation respectively, said that their drivers are tired of being the target of assaults that recently caused the deaths of four drivers.

To address the situation, the police and the Federation began to work together on the program, which so far has proved very successful.

The initiative allows the police to stop a taxi driver at any time to ensure that all is well and to check for possible attackers.

The drivers have to affix a sticker on the back window of their vehicle that authorizes the police to stop them. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said that the sticker sends a direct message to delinquents.

The most recent assault took place on the morning of August 30 on a Yonkers street, where authorities found Pericles Salas, 32, originally from Mexico, shot in the head. Salas had a wife and a five-year-old daughter.

The police are investigating whether any of the recent assaults were committed by the same person. The preliminary investigations indicate that the attacker asked for a car to take him from Linden Street to Jessamine Avenue.

Salas' death comes a week after the death of José Peña Segura, 42, originally from the Dominican Republic, who was killed after picking up three men in St. Mary's Park in Mott Haven. Authorities arrested a suspect and recovered a .35 caliber weapon in that case.

Two weeks prior to the Salas case, another driver, Amadau Ndiaye, 46, was assassinated in Baychester. In May, Roberto Pinta, 37, was killed in Morris Heights in what the police are calling a failed robbery attempt.