Cabbies in court  (21/7/2004)

A Darlington driver defeats council in court ruling over compulsory DSA driving test, while a Dundee driver is deemed fit and proper to drive but not operate a taxi.

A Darlington driver has won a long-running wrangle over his local authority's decision to require the passing of the Driver Standards Agency's taxi driver test for the grant or renewal of a badge.

Bishop Auckland Magistrates ruled that Darlington Borough Council had acted beyond its powers in requiring drivers to pass the test to be awarded a taxi driver's license.

Malcom Kaye, who has 33 years experience in the trade, had seen his license renewal refused by Darlington Borough Council after refusing to take the DSA test.

Mr Kaye and two other drivers with cases due to be heard were represented by the Amicus union, which now hopes that the council will drop the controversial test.

The council had argued that the test was introduced to promote public safety.  However, Mr Kaye's representative claimed that there was no proof that taxi drivers were prone to more serious accidents and said that the test would be detrimental to public safety since it would encourage unlicensed drivers and lead to a shortage of taxis.

Darlington Borough Council is considering an appeal.

Fit and proper 1
A Dundee driver has lost an appeal after the city's licensing committee deemed him not 'fit and proper' to operate a taxi but took the opposite view in relation to him driving one.

Sean Petrie had effectively owned and operated the taxi of a deceased license holder for two years.  Tayside Police objected to the grant of both owner and driver's licenses to Mr Petrie since he had 'exercised control and management' over the taxi license while not being the true license holder.

But councillors had decided that Mr Petrie was a 'fit and proper' person to drive a taxi, but not to operate one.  His representative in the sheriff court claimed that this was wrong in law and unreasonable.

In dismissing the appeal, Sheriff Crowe said the committee had taken the view that Mr Petrie had effectively operated a taxi without a license and his actions had indicated a disregard for the proper system of taxi licensing in Dundee. Thus while not precluding him from driving a taxi, operating one was a different matter.  

The matters considered by the council were 'highly relevant to the type of license being sought'.

Fit and proper 2
An Amber Valley cabbie has lost his taxi license after being found guilty of overcharging a blind customer.

At a June hearing Ilkeston magistrates were told that Matthew Wood, who runs All Ways Taxis in Eastwood, had charged Sue Atchison £23 for a 12-mile journey from her home, breaching the maximum tariffs set by Amber Valley Borough Council.

Magistrates were told by licensing officers that Mr Wood had charged the late night tariff, which began at midnight, but he had picked up Mrs Atchison at 6.30 in the evening.

Mr Wood told the court that the overcharging was not done deliberately and that within a week he had delivered a letter of apology and a refund.  During the three-hour trial Mr Wood said that he found 'offensive' a prosecution claim that he thought he could get away with it because Mrs Atchison was blind and 'would not twig'.

But Wood was found guilty and given a two year conditional discharge.  He was also ordered to pay £1,200 towards the council's costs.

Now magistrates have refused Wood's appeal from a decision of Amber Valley council to refuse to give him his taxi license back.

The court heard that Wood, 25, had in 2001 been convicted of illegally plying for hire in Broxtowe and a year later was convicted of failing to stop after an accident, when his license was suspended for a time.

Presiding magistrate Robert Lander told Wood that 'it is our opinion you are not a fit and proper person to hold a license'.

The decision does not affect the drivers of Wood's taxi firm.  Woods told the court that he was proud of his business and enjoys the respect of staff, and customers had signed a petition to show their support.

Comment
Although there is a reasonable chance that it will be overturned on appeal, the Darlington case is disappointing for those who would like to see it more difficult to be granted a driver's badge, which would result in a higher quality service and better earnings for drivers.  

The view expressed in court that tests of this type would lead to a shortage of taxis is a familiar one, but arguments of these type are often used by the same people who at the same time complain that there are too many taxis on the streets, but of course the rationale for this is that minimal standards for the grant of badges are often sought by those who want a steady supply of drivers for their vehicles, but want the number of vehicles limited so that they can extract a premium from those drivers for their use.

As regards the specific case in question, there is more to good driving than avoiding accidents, and there are certainly drivers in areas overrun with part-timers and itinerant drivers who would welcome the chance to sit such a test, which might deter the more frivolous element of the trade.  But considering the driving standards demonstrated by some in the trade, it is perhaps unsurprising that many drivers apparently have so little confidence in their ability to pass the DSA test, and that its introduction should generate so much hostility where it has been introduced, but again those who represent the trade are very often those who perpetually complain about a shortage of drivers, whether or not by any reasonable standard there is in fact a surfeit.

While councillors have been courageous enough to stand their ground, rightly blaming the 50 per cent pass rate on 'a problem with driving skills', and view the test as a 'matter of principle', perhaps the test in Darlington might have proved more palatable if it had been made compulsory only for new drivers.

The Dundee case is unusual in that while it is often the case that an individual is considered unsuitable to drive a vehicle, but not unfit to operate one (a drunk-driver, say), the opposite is not often the case.

But it is difficult to think of any good reason why someone deemed suitable to drive a vehicle should not be able to run one, since driving one seems the greater responsibility, and in any case the driver can be held responsible for the roadworthiness of the vehicle.  After all, there seems to be little involved in running a taxi since its operation is very often entrusted to the drivers anyway, and in the past Dundee councillors have decided that an individual could operate taxis while living overseas.

Of course, in the specific case the view taken was that different consideration apply to each type of license, but given the facts of the case this seems like saying that a serial fraudster (say) should be deemed fit to be granted taxi licenses because the fraud was not related either to the operation or driving of a taxi.

Thus the decision smacks of what is effectively a punishment insofar as the driver will be disadvantaged by not being able to run his own vehicle, and this in turn seems consistent with the view of many local authorities who seem to view the award of a taxi license as a form of patronage, most often seen in the context of numerical controls on taxi numbers.

Also unsatisfactory is that many people have and still do abuse taxi licenses in this way and get away with it, and in fact Dundee is particularly relevant in this regard.  Moreover, as we reported recently drivers elsewhere who colluded in such illegal arrangements were eventually rewarded by the grant of the plate in their names, in those cases assets worth considerable sums.

Of course, both the Darlington and Dundee cases are ultimately born of the often token standards that have to be met to enter the trade, which in turn leads to an over-supply of drivers and then the illusory and exploitative attempts to reverse this by arbitrary limits on taxi numbers.

And as the Darlington case and de-limitation scenarios everywhere demonstrate, attempts to rectify these problems are fraught with difficulty.

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