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The Casey Column
By
Wayne Casey (LL SC SW)
If Carlsberg wrote columns in taxi magazines, this would probably be best column in the world
Last Night of the Proms
July saw my daughter’s prom night at Carlisle Racecourse. Being male and heterosexual, I naturally ducked out of any organising, insofar as I’m concerned, that’s woman’s work. Indeed, as the big day arrived it was during the world cup and it was sunny outside, so I decided to do a spot of sunbathing with a transistor radio, a nice relaxing ‘Magners’ pear cider by my side with lashings of ice. Hence the photo above suggesting I wasn’t really ready for the occasion.
Being involved in the NTA, I am aware that recent years have witnessed a degree of disquiet about stretched limousines. I therefore asked my daughter to make sure the driver wasn’t a dribbling maniac with ginger hair and paedophiliac type tendencies. The evening went well and I’m glad to report the driver was none of the above.
This leads me onto the licensing of stretched limousines. It has been established for quite some time now that limousines with fewer than 9 seats should be licensed by local authorities, 9 or more should be registered with VOSA.
It seems, however, some local authorities don't seem to have much of a clue in respect of limousine licensing.
One local authority recently advised the NTA Chairman they didn’t have to license vehicles used for Prom nights because the same vehicles and drivers were used for weddings. It’s this type of ignorance which makes writing this column so easy. Another local authority advised it couldn’t possibly do anything on prom nights given their lack of resources.
Listen up people, we’re not exactly after a Geordie madman, you don't have to call in RAF Tornado jets or 500 officers 160 of whom are armed with shiny Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifles, Glock 9mm pistols, MP5 Carbines, .223 Remington rifles, M24 sniper rifles and 50,000-volt electric Taser stun guns and a large contingent of the worldwide press. All you got to do, and let me be 100% accurate, is contact the school that is organising the prom and turn up at the location at the start of the event.
That’s one telephone call, one copper and one hours work.
The chances are the vehicles will come to you!
OFT (Only F*ck Taxis)
Those of you who regularly read taxitalk will know we tolerate no time for the Office of Fair Trading. They are the ones responsible for the disastrous government policy of taxi deregulation, courtesy of their woefully misguided report of the mid 2000’s. They’re the same ones that managed to completely screw up their investigation into the Banking industry, the investigation where they actually thought sending you a letter for £30 odd quid wasn’t a reasonable practice.
News of the OFT dropping its major lines of inquiry in its long-running inquiry into price-fixing in the dairy industry, despite the fact some of the parties involved had already agreed to pay fines in exchange for leniency. The Office of Fair Trading said it had "insufficient" evidence to make all its allegations stick and had dropped two out of five lines of inquiry, should come as no surprise to the taxi industry.
The watchdog said it did not have enough evidence to pursue Tesco on three counts relating to milk and butter prices. Tesco, the only company involved in the inquiry not to admit guilt, maintained throughout that, "acting independently", it had increased prices to aid farmers during a difficult time for the dairy industry.
The diminished scope of the investigation means Morrisons is no longer caught in the OFT net at all. The grocer, which has spent close to £2m defending itself, had always protested its innocence. Indeed, it sued the OFT for defamation, winning £100,000, after it issued a press release containing several "serious errors" including that the grocer had been "warned" about anti-competitive behaviour before.
Okay, lets look at the OFT inquiry into the taxi trade and this is rather important. You see the OFT report had a major effect on the view made by local authorities towards regulating taxi numbers, indeed, the report had a somewhat overbearing influence on the Department for Transport best practice guidance.
The OFT spent close on £250,000 in its much coveted inquiry into the taxi trade, amongst its much lost purpose was to establish “how consumers use taxis and what they value about taxi services.” If you don't believe me on that, I suggest you refer to annex c of the report.
The evidence is actually there for those of you out there who are anoraks, for example on page 10 of the annex on every count the taxi service provided in a deregulated area was actually WORSE than a regulated area!
One beauty is the following legend at 3.27
“Passengers wait an average of five minutes in restricted authorities for a taxi at a rank. However, in derestricted authorities the average wait time for a hackney at a rank is 7.24 minutes.”
3.28 includes the following statement:
“When ‘flagging’ a taxi, passengers wait an average of 8.8 minutes in restricted areas as opposed to 9.6 minutes in derestricted authorities”
The situation in respect of telephone bookings is also pretty bleak for deregulated areas at 3.29;
“Passengers wait an average of 10.6 minutes in restricted authorities and 14.8 minutes in derestricted areas for a taxi when booked by telephone.”
Indeed ‘annex c’ further reports that customers in regulated areas are actually more satisfied with the taxi service than their fellow customers who live in deregulated areas.
So how could it be, with customer satisfaction towards taxi services actually lower in deregulated areas than in regulated areas and waiting times in deregulated areas longer than in regulated areas, could the OFT come to the conclusion that deregulation was actually in the best interests of the consumer?
Well, the OFT answer this and basically say its fairly simplistic, I guess that actually means, its simplistic presumably because it doesn’t actually give them the answers they wanted, which undoubtedly would have been a better cab service in a deregulated area than a regulated one!
I think I’ll go a little further on this, because as you all know, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but unfortunately not a thing a body such as the OFT are actually blessed with.
At the time of the OFT report the taxi trade were actually quite concerned with the known effects of deregulation. We had on our side the report of the Chief Constable of Merseyside, who referred to Liverpool’s taxi deregulation as ‘his little monster’. (He was referring to the over abundance of taxis being over-ranked in Liverpool’s city centre, not the size of his trouser snake).
Yet the all knowing OFT dismissed such suggestions in their report. Indeed they stated (and I quote);
“congestion and pollution caused by motor vehicles is a huge problem of which taxis are only a small part”
As you have read in this column in recent months, congestion at ranks has led to some seriously draconian action by councils across the country, yet according to the OFT, we’re only a small part, so presumably they’ll write to all local authorities who deregulated on their words and wisdom explaining this little dilemma? ........................... didn’t think so.
In my view, the evidence given by the OFT was then , as it is now, highly dubious, and it is one that still affects our governments best practice guidance, to which, as you all know, councils throw a great deal of weight behind when delimiting or considering delimitation. Incidentally, whilst many councils and licensing officers in particular, will readily point all and sundry towards the guidance in respect of taxi numbers control, they seemingly forget all the other bits and pieces in the guidance which are more in tune with the needs of the taxi trade.
Perhaps one day when the hackney carriage trade actually start giving a t*ss about its future, it will have the resources and be able to defend such libel as what was produced all those years ago by the OFT, just as those supermarkets did.
In short the OFT ignored most of its own findings in its woefully misguided report of 2003, yet the government of the day (and the current incumbents), chose and choose to accept it, it’s a legacy we still live with today.
Illegal Conditions
It’s strange the conditions some councils think they can actually get away with; very often these conditions are at the behest of the local taxi trade.
One example of such is a proviso from one local authority, although I’m pretty sure it isn’t alone, whereby a person can only apply for a HC proprietor’s license if they have been a HC driver for 2 years. A nice condition, unfortunately illegal, but a nice condition nevertheless.
In another area a council is considering issuing additional Hackney Proprietors licenses for purely WAV’s, issued on the proviso the vehicle is attached to a radio circuit. Which admittedly makes sense, however, one would have to ask about the commitment of private hire, surely it would make a lot more sense if private hire circuits were required to have a percentage of WAV’s which were actually PHV’s......sorry, that was withdrawn from the equality bill wasn’t it.
Backwards thinking
The recession hit the taxi trade many months before it hit the rest of the economy. It had to, for many reasons taxis are very often still seen as a luxury, an expense that can be cut from many peoples and businesses budgets. Indeed, recent months have seen many reports in both the local and national press decrying the fragrant use of taxis on expenses claims and local authority budgets.
Local Authorities are looking at their budgets and greedily eyeing the staffing levels in licensing departments. Seemingly forgetting the previous government and local authority incompetence meant the workloads of licensing departments have vastly increased from their workload of even 6 years ago.
The finance departments need to make cuts and licensing is more or less certain to take hits.
It appears to me, in a recession with money tight for everyone, people will be tempted to chance their arms and ignore basic rules and laws. Unlicensed vehicles are bound to increase and rules will be broken. The risk to the public will increase. Common sense would therefore suggest that licensing budgets and staffing levels would need, at the very least, to increase in terms of inflation.
Before you good folks all start writing in saying “Wayne, the licensing budget by law is ring fenced, no recession will affect our licensing department”, I’ll agree. But agreeing and what is happening are two entirely different things.
A Day at the Races
On the odd occasion the racecourse at Carlisle gets quite busy. The local association were invited to a meeting with the officials at the racecourse to discuss taxi arrangements.
The area where taxis usually stand, which incidentally isn’t an official taxi rank (because the nearest rank is 2 miles away) is across the road from the main grandstand.
The racecourses health and safety department, after discussions with the local police, decided that people shouldn’t walk across busy roads for taxis. It was therefore mooted that unless alternative arrangements were made, there would be no facilities for taxis whatsoever at the racecourse.
The association, in a constructive meeting agreed with the racecourse and police officials that during busy race-meetings taxis would be better entering the racecourse premises and collecting fares from a marshalled taxi rank. The alternative, as explained above, was taxis being moved on by the police and no taxi facilities at all.
Transitional arrangements were made and the situation wasn’t exactly perfect, although it wasn’t as bad as some would suggest.
An appraisal of the arrangements was made on 19th July, in hope of ironing out a number of issues that came up. Most notably taxis trying to work the marshalled rank being commandeered before taxis could get to the rank by people walking down Durdar Road.
The new arrangements will be in place possibly before the publication of this magazine.
A number of comments have filtered back to me, second hand, from drivers who were apparently not impressed by the arrangements. I have actually sat down and thought about some of the comments made and decided they were made by morons and therefore not worthy of consideration.
A number of people have given up their own time, at their own expense, whilst others were standing on ranks and working, the alternative, as previously suggested was no taxi facilities. Given the alternative, the local association have done a pretty decent job, in partnership with licensing, police and racecourse officials.
Differing visions
I don't actually write this column to please people. Over the years I have written much and upset many. This isn’t going to change now.
A taxi proprietor in a deregulated area is different to a taxi proprietor in a regulated one.
Primarily, the cab owner in Deregland has one aspiration, namely to have some kind of income they know they can reasonably achieve. In Regulationville, the income, due to the supply of taxis arguably not being in excess of demand, is more or less a little more certain.
Indeed, very often in Deregland, the LA has set age limits on vehicles, these are both upper and lower limits (one first license and subsequent), quite often set to ensure a new proprietor ‘invests’. However, with vehicle finance not overly difficult the stemming doesn’t actually work. Whereas in Regulationville, where in some case the value of a plate is more expensive by many times that of the vehicle it is attached to, certain proprietors seem to balk at the additional expense as something as paltry as a mere vehicle.
Recent times saw the NTA bitterly oppose rear loading types of vehicles. Based on evidence these vehicles were to all intents and purposes, ‘accidents waiting to happen’. Strangely enough, some regulated areas, have apparently ignored the NTA policy and allowed these vehicles to be licensed, with the support of the regulated taxi trade. I obviously expect these views to change if those same areas are suddenly faced with the prospect of deregulation.
Mr Hall.....you owe me a tenner!
As regular readers will be aware, Russell Hall, taxitalk’s football correspondent, confidently predicted England would win this year’s world cup. Bowing to my better judgement that Spain would be the most likely winners, I followed Russell’s advice and placed a £10 bet at the local bookies.
England then went on to play some of the worst football I’ve seen since Hesket under 14’s were beaten 10 -1 by a team of ringers from Penrith. At least the 10-1 defeat allowed me a good 20 miles to shout at my son about basic things like passing the ball to the team dressed in the same colour and controlling a football.
Instead the England ‘team’, and I use that term in its loosest possibly meaning, turned up and played football like a bunch of retarded elephants, the fact that they pay more in tax in one week than many of us will pay in our lives was seemingly forgotten.
To make matters worse, I lost my tenner.
The next time I bet on football, I’ll follow the basic rule of betting on a team of players who can actually play football, not a bunch of overpaid prima-donnas (Carragher & Gerrard apart).
Till next month
Wayne Casey
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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin
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