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The Casey Column Feb 2010
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Author:  captain cab [ Fri Jan 22, 2010 5:04 pm ]
Post subject:  The Casey Column Feb 2010
The Casey Column

By

Wayne Casey (LL SC)


Point of Order?

As you regular readers, or gods chosen few as I like to refer to you, will be aware I am not and never have been a great supporter of the penalty points schemes dreamed up by licensing departments with too much spare time on their hands.

I’m sorry, but for a licensing officer to calmly sit down in sound mind and think “Hmm Sounding of horn.....2 points, murder.....4 points”, whilst across the road they may have a private hire vehicle illegally plying for hire, somehow seems stupid.

To fully understand the licensing officer’s point of view we actually need to get in the mind of a licensing officer. Unfortunately taxitalk wouldn’t allow me to do this, shame really, I had my hacksaw and screwdriver at the ready.

What’s more hassle, sitting down in a nice warm office dreaming of points systems, or going outside, putting a coat on, maybe some gloves and then finding the PH car, doing an interview under PACE, preparing a report and attending a subsequent disciplinary hearing that maybe result in a magistrates court appearance and the grilling by some insane solicitor? As the world’s laziest person, I know what I’d rather do and going out into the cold wouldn’t come into it.

Therefore a number of local authorities have adopted penalty points systems for the various misdemeanours committed by licensed drivers. Each misdemeanour carries a number of penalty points, when a upper limit is reached the driver doesn’t, like in the Premier League, qualify for Europe, they qualify for a committee appearance where they must explain their erroneous ways.

Unbelievably, some of these points systems have been supported. In some cases suggested, by the taxi trade. This naturally raises the question if some cab drivers are descendents of lemmings?

I hear you ask. Why? Am I, a normally pleasant human being so much against these points systems? Well, the answer is simple, you have to see the points systems in place before you fully understand how stupid they are.

One area basically stated that after 12 months a driver would start the new licensing period with a clean slate, therefore if a driver gets points for something on 1st January 2009, on 1st January 2010 the offence is then ‘spent’ and the driver is made free of the points.

Okay, lets see what the points are for, I hope you ain’t thinking mundane things like having a dirty cab and suchlike, because if I were to tell you one local authority will give a PH driver 12 points for touting or soliciting, or 8 points for eating and drinking in the vehicle, without the express permission of the passenger, it kind of gives you a little clue.

In my view, and I hope yours, if a PH driver is soliciting or touting it is a criminal offence and the driver should be prosecuted and then have their badge removed, don't add 12 points to some legally dubious scheme put in place by some sad pen pushing pillock!

Shocked?

At the time of writing a number of local authorities are carrying out ‘multi agency’ operations which involve the stopping taxis and private hire cars. Drivers complain about the ‘heavy handed’ approach, councillors complain and use words like ‘shocked’.

I wonder if ‘shocked’ is the right expression? ‘Shocked’ should mean something akin to filling ones trousers with brown stuff whilst watching a gory horror film, ‘Shocked’ should perhaps start with a capital ‘S’ and come with a good supply of punctuation marks just to graphically show how ‘Shocked’ a person is !!!!!!

Perhaps the good councillors (good councillors? An oxymoron surely......Ed) need to get out to the pictures (or ‘talkies’ as they still possibly refer to them) maybe they should look down our High Street each weekend, where no doubt they will be equally ‘shocked’ at the number of drunken people urinating in doorways, staggering about in drunken stupors, being sick on cab ranks and generally beating the bejesus of each other.

Why are these people ‘shocked’? Are they shocked that they have licensed so many taxis owners cannot afford to maintain them? Somehow I doubt it, the last thing the ‘good’ councillors do is look deep inside themselves, in politics attack is the best form of defence, so blame the entire cab trade!

Are they shocked because they have allowed standards to fall?

Why are they shocked? Well I genuinely think they’re shocked because they haven’t got a clue about the regime they are responsible for, can someone please tell me what a hairdresser, professional local politician, newsagent, doctor, housewife and chemist actually know about the vagaries of the licensed taxi trade? Moreover the foot soldiers they employ to run the licensing regime is in many cases as equally unqualified. Strange turn of phrase that ain’t it....regime...quite a cogent expression, it’s usually used in the context of a form of government like the regime of Fidel Castro or Kim Jong-il.

You see, whilst I know all of you maintain your vehicles to the best of your ability, you read this column therefore displaying a remarkable amount of intelligence, maybe even intelligent enough to have joined the National Taxi Association. But I also know that every area has a proportion of cab owners that don't give a t*ss and run vehicles on a policy of when it’s broken it’s then fixed.

I also know that numerous local authorities outsource their taxi testing regimes, they may have sold off their works department, where it once stood, is now a block of flats. I also know that many local authorities will choose a number of different testing stations. In my view having numerous testing stations leads to a drop in standards.

You have been warned

Sometimes in writing this column I mention some really poignant issues, of course this is admirably counterbalanced by mentioning some totally irrelevant nonsense, that aside I think this is one of those poignant moments.

A good number of taxi licensing committees sit under the umbrella of ‘Public protection’, indeed, a licensing committees job appears to be the sole purpose of the protection of the public.

A number of years ago the NTA wrote to every licensing authority in the UK giving the view that rear loading wheelchair accessible vehicles were basically an accident waiting to happen. The compelling argument was based upon the wheelchair bound passenger being placed within the crumple zone of the rear loader. I know some of you will be nodding your heads at the moment, with no actual idea what a crumple zone is. Well, I’ll tell you. The crumple zone of a vehicle is an area specifically designed to give way in the event of an accident.

There is all kinds of scientific proof regarding crumple zones. But very basically, in a vehicle accident there is something called energy, the crumple zone is designed to absorb the energy and lessen the risk of injury to the occupants of the vehicle.

Obviously putting a passenger in a crumple zone means that in the event of an accident the passenger is in the part of the vehicle designed to give way.

Additional NTA points included the lack of ranking space for rear loading vehicles. The risk associated with bumping passengers down kerbs and onto a carriageway for loading, not forgetting the fact that the driver is the one who is faced with the risk. I haven’t even got to the real bone of contention, in the event of a collision from the rear, how will a wheelchair bound passenger exit the vehicle?

A number of local authorities took on board the NTA view and have reviewed their policies as to not allow rear loading taxis to be licensed. A number of others, given advice from the local taxi trade, declined to do so, possibly / almost certainly* (*delete as applicable) due to reasons of cost as opposed to anything else.

Now the NTA has raised this issue I wonder if there are possible implications for local authorities under the corporate manslaughter act? After all, they have been given warning of the risk associated with rear loaders.

Following the tragic death of a 14 year old schoolgirl, who was a passenger in a Birmingham licensed hackney carriage, an inquisition took place on 7 July 2009 before H M Coroner, Mr A K Cotter at Birmingham Coroner’s Court.

After hearing the evidence the Coroner strongly recommended that all licensed hackney carriage drivers should undergo Disability Awareness Training.

Stupid Cab Drivers

From time to time I do actually read the editorial. I read with interest the Doom Twins comments on a book by Michael Moore called ‘Stupid White Men’, indeed, I read the editorial so much I dispatched my wife to ‘Waterstones’ to purchase the book for me post haste.

To be a tad critical, there is a distinct lack of spying, jet fighters, hand to hand combat, female mud wrestling and love making (not necessarily in that order) in the book, but nevertheless I persisted with the toffee half of the Doom twins recommendation and to be honest I couldn’t put the book down, in amongst this I had one of those ‘light bulb above the head’ type moment’s.

As the co-editor suggested and as pointed out by Michael Moore, there is an ample opportunity for the cab trade to effectively take over a political party. Yes, I know, I have consistently said we should not get involved in politics, indeed, I did at one point suggest politicians should have absolutely no say in the taxi trade whatsoever, but then again, I have recently converted myself towards the protection of our planet; because if it results in fewer cabs it will suit me fine!

I am reminded of a story a few years back when a number of cab drivers sat for election in local authority elections, whilst the campaign idea was seemingly sound, it had one key flaw. Who in their right mind would vote for a cab driver standing as an independent? A far better, far more achievable and far easier goal is for the cab trade on a local level to join a mainstream political party on masse.

Obviously, this task isn’t exactly the easiest for me, I’m going to have to seriously bite my lip and forget about the nepotism currently seen within much of local politics where family and friends seemingly run entire Cities as their own private thiefdoms. I am prepared to cast this aside my prejudices and concentrate on the main issue.

A recent report in the Independent newspaper suggested that on average a massive 40 labour party members will take part in selection meetings when selecting a Labour Party MP candidate.

A decent example is Carlisle, which has been more or less a safe labour seat for the best part of 50 years (although this may alter due to boundary changes). The Cumberland News summed the selection process up far better than myself with the following quote:

“More than 140 Labour Party members took part in the selection meeting at Tullie House.”

140 people? selected a guy to do a job whose annual salary will be £64,766 and he was selected by a massive five....yes FIVE vote majority.

I wonder what would have happened if 70 cab drivers had joined the party, turned up and basically suggested you actually work for us?

I am not suggesting we all join the Labour Party on mass, indeed, I am not suggesting we all become MP’s, but ask you to look at the political landscape of your local authority area. It may well be the Tories or, heaven forbid, the Lib Dems are the ones that hold the key.

I maybe a little sad (what’s with the maybe.....Ed), but imagine the fun you and you’re association could have if you all joined the Labour Party (or Tories) and turned up at a branch or Klan meeting. “I forward a motion that the local party re-limit taxi numbers”.

Facing facts, we have no reason to suspect political party meetings are better or worse attended than taxi association meetings, indeed, given the indifference of the British voter and the fact that the mainstream political parties are in the midst of a membership crisis, it could be, as suggested by the Doomier of the Doom twins, that a mere handful of cab drivers could make a difference.

Provided enough turn up and it’s in accordance with the constitution, what’s to stop such things from happening?

Got well soon

Last year one of our members in Carlisle was diagnosed with cancer. The taxi trade being the taxi trade, and as much as I tend to highlight the bad things, are actually quite generous. Upon hearing of the plight of their colleague, both members and non members of Carlisle Taxi Association organised a Get Well Card and small gift for the chap in question.

As Chairman of the local association I was given the task of taking the card and present to the chap’s home. Well, not being the sharpest knife in the draw, I put the card in my briefcase and left it there.

Fortunately the chap got better and has returned to work.

Pictured below is yours truly presenting the card to Mike Croskery. I’ll take this opportunity to wish Mike a long, happy and prosperous life.
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