Well, not quite but Mr A (Thomasthetaxi) thinks so.
In keeping with my promise to be polite, and a little more understanding to his view points, he's given permission for it to be posted on here for discussion.
My own viewpoint is simple, it will never happen in London.
Anyhow, here is his article:
The word on their lips is HARMONISATION. In the corridors of power at Windsor House, they are making plans for a one tier taxi trade.
They are out to blur the lines between the two trades. In the next two years, they will merge us all in to one big fun loving band of happy cabby's.
They want to get rid of 25,000 self employed Taxi drivers and have us all working for men like Steve Wright and John Griffin. Just look at the radio circuits, they are already in a transitional mode with there fleets of partner mini cabs. We have to get the Mayor firmly on our side.
We need to take action now.
We need stronger leaders who are willing to rock the boat. We have to change the "I'm all right jack" attitude, because very shortly you wont be all right.
TFL/PCO, have shot themselves in the foot with the new Merc taxi, as this vehicle was only licensed to blend us in with the mini cab trade. (Note: Meets the COF
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They never catered for the fact that LTI may go under in the new year, especially if the class action law suit goes through, this may become the only purpose built Taxi available to us.
We have to make sure, if we are to use this Merc, then the PHV drivers must stop using it and any other similar vehicles.
It says in the 1998 Private Hire Act, that no vehicle, that resembles a Hackney Carriage in any way, can be used as a Private Hire Vehicle, something they have overlooked. The Merc as a Taxi resembles almost all people carriers, should private hire go back to salon cars? or just paint them all bright yellow as in Birmingham.
They passed this act in Parliament, they must be made to abide by it?
If they don't enforce this, then we have to go to the high court.
It would cost about 10 grand to go to court on this issue, that's about 40p from every driver.
Our problem is, there are too many people from outside our trade with too much say in the way we operate. These people are not on our side, never have been and have to be removed. We need a divorce from TFL.
We need to get shot of our enemies who run the PCO.
We need to replace them with educated Taxi drivers, not trade reps.
They have already proved, they cant run anything to our advantage, just look at Mr Oddie;
not a word in eight months on the board of TFL, with all the clipboard men and minicab rank issues hitting the headlines.
Why do they want to Harmonise the Trades?
TFL have for the past couple of years been implementing the old mayors policy of Equality and Inclusion, E&I to those in power. Under this system we have seen a watering down of the knowledge with handouts to anyone from an ethnic back ground in the form of mopeds, safety equipment and fuel allowances. Plus we now see wheelchair bound, disabled Taxi drivers. Very helpful to other wheelchair users or people with luggage, what happened to being a fit and proper person?
Ken Livingstone and his henchman Peter Hendy always said the London Licensed taxi Trade did not reflect the diversity of this city. The same could be said of the Private hire trade that is made up almost entirely from people with an ethnic back ground and people with English as a second language. Perhaps this is why they wanted to blend the two trades together.
It only ever worried Ken and Peter who said "The London Taxi Trade is too White, too Male and to English, no one else commented or seemed to care and why should they, after all its not a monopoly, anyone can sign on and do the knowledge but only the very best get through. Surly that's what you need to find, the very best cabby's, to serve the very best city in the world. Who wants to be referred to as one of Kens substandard cabby's.
This situation can only get worse under TFL rule, this is why we need to brake away as soon as possible.
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