1.   Like their counterparts in other California counties, the inspectors routinely check all commercial scales, taxi meters and gas pumps in the city.

2.   Tamam, who lives in Great Neck, N.Y., designed a system that uses a conventional taxi meter connected to a credit card reader and a wireless modem.

3.   Tampering with taxi meters may no longer be as prevalent as it once was, but the practice is not extinct, Taxi and Limousine Commission inspectors said Thursday.

4.   The drivers and owners do not face criminal charges, Fromberg said, because there is no criminal statute that covers tampering with a taxi meter.

5.   The last big city in America to resist the use of taxi meters is on the verge of giving in.

6.   When talking about the damaging effects of sun exposure, Dr. Darrell S. Rigel likens the skin to a taxi meter.

7.   At present, the taxi meters are surreptitiously covered with a cloth or calendar and ignored by the cabbies.

8.   At least two other taxi drivers were arrested during the past few months accused of grossly inflating the amount shown on their taxi meters by using remote control devices.