Taxi Driver Online

The Transport Tribunal has directed Welsh Traffic Commisioner David Dixon to reconsider his decision refusing to grant PSV O-Licences to two stretch limosine operators on the grounds that their vehicles did not have Certificates of Initial Fitness.

The dilema facing stretch limo operators is that left-hand-drive vehicles could not achieve the UK Certificate of Initial Fitness required for operation as a PSV with more than eight seats. Therefore, their only route into PSV operation is through Section 265 of the Transport Act 2000, which allows vehicles of eight seats or less as long as they operate at separate fares and only on journeys in excess of 15 miles between the start and finish points. Meanwhile, holders of standard National or International O-Licences can run up to 10% of their fleet as eight seaters without restriction - an anomaly that the NLA UK says opens up the prospect of big bus companies "franchising" stretch limo operation to smaller concerns. Be that as it may, against the confused background of the licencing of these vehicles and in particular the the contention that limo operators had been granted PSV O-Licences in at least two other Traffic Areas, the Welsh Traffic Commissioner said consideration into the operation of these vehicles was required to ascertain whether they could be licenced as PSV vehicles.
The Public Inquiry had heard from VOSA Enforcement Officers that the £90,000 plus vehicles which can have from eight to twenty seats, fell through a loophole in the regulations being neither PSVs nor private hire vehicles. "We have been talking to Alistair Darling's department about this loophole for seven years, but as there are no votes to be gained by closing it there does not seem the political will to bring in new legislation" said NLA UK Legislative Officer Bill Bowling. He added that more than 7,000 stretch limos were probaly on UK roads. "Our members want to be brought within a regulatory framework and we think that the PSV is more appropriate for these vehicles than the loacl authority private hire regulations, where we have 404 different regulatory bodies all with different rules" he said. "Half of those still have policies which presume against the licensing of stretch limos"
When the Commissioner reserved his decision, he said that finding a way for the companies to meet the spirit of the law on ticketing and individual fares might be the biggest problem.