Another very very good article in Taxi talk
http://www.taxitalk.co.uk/pdfs/Taxi%20T ... 202010.pdf
My scribbling last month seems to have had the desired affect, wee Jimmy received more ridicule and was by all accounts ‘seething’. This brought forth some unsubstantiated attacks on yours truly on a taxi driver forum.
As you will be aware from last months article, wee Jimmy and his cohorts tend to believe all the wrongs of the world evolve from taxi regulation, this could be the war in Afghanistan, or the BP oil leak in the Gulf, or indeed, the fact it’s raining. At some point the argument will turn into the whole mess being Edinburgh Councils fault for its managed growth policy towards taxis. The citizens of Edinburgh are then subject to a torrent of letters to their local paper.
I dared to air the view that Edinburgh Council, by regularly surveying taxi demand.....and acting upon the results, were being reasonable.
Wee Jimmy then surmises that I must therefore believe rape is reasonable. He even took the bother of partially quoted Lady Smith who stated;
"What she needed was a licensed taxi to uplift her and take her safely back to the hostel where she was staying.
"What she did not need was the nightmare experience which followed, an experience for which you were entirely responsible."
I don't think rape is reasonable and any person who suggests such is an obvious buffoon, indeed, I think rapists, like child sex offenders should be castrated with blunt instruments, such as a Titleist D2 driver. I also think, whilst were talking offences here, that beating a woman (the battering type, not at chess type) or colleague is also an offence that should more or less guarantee the person shouldn’t be licensed, in some cities such things are frowned upon and drivers licenses are actually revoked.
If a person were to link the rape of a poor girl to a lack of taxi availability, you would think they’d do a little research. Any person of a sound mind would if they were going to suggest such a thing.
You see if there was evidence to suggest rape is more prevalent in areas with limited taxi numbers than deregulated numbers, then I’m quite certain our wee Crank would be jumping up and down, perhaps like a demented baboon, with statistical evidence in hand. The lack of data, suggests our friend, the Crank, is merely jumping of a majorly sick type of bandwagon, where the feelings of the victim are secondary to the overall aim.
The incident to which our Crank refers is a strange one. As many of you will be aware, Edinburgh only licenses a couple of types of taxi, either the purpose built variety, or the bread van. Yet the vehicle the girl apparently got into was a black four door saloon car which wasn’t apparently plated.
The girl didn’t hire the vehicle on a taxi rank but from outside the Hudson Hotel in Hope Street.
The police advice of the time was "Continue to enjoy yourself on nights out in Edinburgh, but think about how you're getting home. At the end of the night book a taxi, don't jump into a car without knowing who the driver is. Private hire cars shouldn't stop to pick people up in the street, and you should always check the ID of the driver."
Edinburgh has marshalled taxi ranks, "Any lone women should go to taxi ranks that are marshalled in the city centre, where they know they'll be safe – there are security staff there and they will be put into a fully licensed Edinburgh taxi."
Indeed, I’m quite sure many of Edinburgh’s PH companies give preferential treatment for single females, just as a number of their English counterparts do on my side of the Border.
Talking to friends in the Edinburgh cab trade, I understand trade is currently slow, so much so, taxis have been booked by the police for over-ranking and the council is considering taking further measures. This hardly suggests an undersupply of taxis, does it?
