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The Casey Column
By
Wayne Casey (LL SC SW)
The views expressed in this column are not those of the National Taxi Association
Due to editorial deadlines, Christmas, New Year and everything else is almost 6 weeks away, and I find myself writing this in November, I therefore hope you all enjoyed the festive period, I’m sure as sure itself that I did / will.
The problem is of course, no doubt some issues will have crept up between writing this and the magazine reaching the streets, have England valiantly beaten the Aussies at Cricket, thus retaining the Ashes? Will we be hosting the 2018 World Cup, or have we been sh*fted by FIFA? Has North Korea gone all ballistic and nuked us, hence making the reading of this magazine, with nuclear fall out everywhere, a tad tricky to say the least?
You can see my difficulty, I’m writing this blind, ironically, if the latter is correct, you will be too.
Okay, that’s enough bitching, let’s get on with the Casey column.
Medicals
On occasion I am actually quite good. True, some people call it pure dumb luck, others are a little kinder calling it spawney. I choose to call it brilliance.
An NTA member association contacted me back in October concerning one of their members. Apparently, a guy who had driven cabs, without incident, for numerous years had all of a sudden found himself in a horrible situation. The local authority had adopted the group 2 medical standard and the new form which the doctor had to fill out, couldn’t be signed due to a previously known illness now becoming an issue.
The DVLA guidance stated this guy shouldn’t be a cab driver. Whilst group one was adopted he could, but because group 2 had been adopted, he couldn’t be a cab driver anymore.
If you’ve followed the above, your probably thinking ’what the hell?’ , this guy has driven cabs for many years, never caused a problem and all of a sudden, because the LA adopt a group 2 policy, he cant drive anymore, that’s unfair!
I agree. Fortunately, due to the local association and of course the NTA having someone like me, we found that London’s very own PCO used to have the group 2 medical for their private hire fleet. Amongst the reasons for it being dropped was that it gave the PCO no discretion in respect of medical ailments.
The local association successfully persuaded the local authority licensing committee that they should use common sense and discretion in relation to the driver, and the happy ending is that the driver was relicensed albeit with special conditions attached to his license.
So there you have it, the first column of 2011 actually praises the NTA, a local association and local authority for using common sense and judgement!
See that John Wayne? He was in the back of my cab
A film magazine recently asked me to do a bit from a cab drivers perspective about films involving cabs and cab drivers, here’s what I wrote, because sure as night turns to day, they won’t print it all.
It’s a relatively easy start to the interrogation because I think when people think of films and taxis they instantly think De Niro and ‘Taxi Driver’. I liked it as a film, however De Niro’s portrayal of Travis Bickle, the cab driver character as a loner, is not one that does our job any favours, it gives us pertinent reminders of the likes or Worboys and Bird, both of whom have become infamous due to their crimes. On the bright side, at least Travis Bickle was a sort of hero.
The ‘chirpy cockney’ image portrayed by Sid James as cab driver ‘Charlie Hawkins’ in ‘Carry on Cabby’ is perhaps one that some of the trade and most of the public recognise, can’t say I do myself, he turned to drink watching his company collapse around him.
Indeed, the image portrayed of the cab driver in the 1970’s comedy sex romp ‘Adventures of a cab driver’ , most notable for the lack of comedy and lack of sex, do very little for the stereotypical image of the cab trade, to be honest they do little for the film industry.
I quite like the cab driver character in ‘Scrooged’, who appeared as the ghost of Christmas past, the wisecracks, manic driving and gesticulations to other motorists are all benefits of the job, unfortunately the character was a ghost and therefore very dead.
The latest films featuring taxis and imaginably enough called ‘Taxi’ seem to be about the manic driving of the cab driver, very often the vehicles are ‘supercharged’ as the driver valiantly tries to get the passenger to their destination at breakneck speed solving crimes on route. Of course, transferring these stories into a UK situation couldn’t happen, the vehicles aren’t wheelchair accessible and couldn’t be licensed.
The Tom Cruise film ‘Collateral’ involved Cruise’s character (a hitman) hiring a cab driver to chauffeur him around Los Angeles carrying out assassinations. I can’t say this has ever happened to me. Ironically, and with echoes of ‘Taxi Driver’ the cab driver character didn’t want his parents to know he drove a cab for a living. This is one of my pet gripes, people seem to use cab driving as a fall back type of employment, not a ‘proper job’, so to speak
‘The Fifth Element’ saw Bruce Willis star as a cab driver who had to defend the survival of humanity, he was ex Special Forces, a decent qualification to be a cab driver in anybody’s book, especially given some of the characters we have to drive around.
Being entrusted with the survival of humanity is obviously everyday occurrences that we taxi drivers are specifically licensed for.
As a matter of interest my dad owned a cab company in Carlisle, we used to regularly buy ex London cabs from a firm called the Caledonian Cab Company, which, from memory was based in Camden. Me and my brother Nick as boys were sitting in the living room one evening watching the film ‘Brannigan’ which starred John Wayne as a US Cop in London to collect a gangster and take him back to the US for trial. From memory one of the cabs John Wayne hired had been unknowingly bought by my dad and was working the mean streets of Carlisle. The vehicle MMC 833L was almost written off one night hitting a cow on Burgh Marsh.
Smoke on the (Wirral) Waters
I wrote a few months back expressing my view that the Wirral cab trade were about to be shafted in John Holmes type proportions in the Wirral Waters scheme, which as you are aware, is being run by those nice folks from Peel Holdings.
I cannot advise the Wirral cab trade more strenuously you must for the love of all that’s sacred read your local rags, contact your planning department and do whatever you can to ensure taxis and taxi ranks are part of the plans. Get it in writing, get it in blood if you must, but get something for heavens sake.
You will be interested to know, the Salford taxi trade thought they had some measure of agreement with their local authority in relation to planning applications etc, yet the Salford Star, which is a paper of the people, reported in November that the cab trade of Salford had been well and truly sh*fter;
NO BLACK CABS AT MEDIACITYUK
BBC staff relocating from London, and Salford people lucky enough to get work, will be staggered to hear that they won’t be able to hail a black cab at MediaCityUK.
Despite millions of pounds worth of public money being sunk into infrastructure at Salford Quays, the whole MediaCityUK site is owned by private company, Peel Holdings, which has confirmed “there will be no taxi ranks within the MediaCityUK development”.
Local cabbies aren’t happy, to say the least.
It wasn’t too long ago that Salford City Council Leader, John Merry, went on local radio and justified relaxing the rules on the number of taxis in Salford by arguing that when MediaCityUK opened it would need more cabs to cope with demand.
Now it is clear that when MediaCityUK opens next year there will be no black cab ranks at all on the site, even though Salford Cabinet’s Work Plan for 2010-11 states that to “ensure safety and fair trading” it will “Work with hackney carriage trade and MediaCityUK to ensure enough taxis”.
While Salford’s black cabs will be able to drop off at MediaCityUK they will not be allowed to pick up passengers as the site is privately owned by Peel Holdings which, according to a Salford Council Regeneration Report, is “looking into contract with taxi firms to allow access to areas”.
You can assume that private hire firms will pay Peel Holdings for the privilege of working at MediaCityUK while the local hackney carriages, driven almost exclusively by Salford workers, will be left out on the sidelines.
Anecdotal evidence from hackney carriage drivers suggests that black cabs are already being turned away from waiting for passengers outside Peel Holdings’ Holiday Inn Hotel on the MediaCityUK site.
Meanwhile the BBC, which already has private hire contracts in place at its Oxford Road base in Manchester, told us that it will be entering into agreements with private hire companies at MediaCityUK but no agreements are yet in place.
“The hackney carriage drivers had a meeting with the Council three years ago and said that we wanted a rank at MediaCityUK” says Salford hackney carriage driver, Simon Whittaker
“They could have sorted this out at the planning stages of MediaCityUK but they didn’t” he adds “This is the same process that’s happened ever since I’ve been on the cabs, over 22 years. This council just does things without proper regard for our livelihoods, our families and the knock on effects to the wider economy.”
Up until late this year, there were exactly two spaces for black cabs near The Lowry. And, as a sop to the hackney carriage drivers, the Council has put a rank with space for three or four cabs around the corner, near the car park entrance. There are also two spaces for cabs, well out of sight, on Merchants Quay. Which leaves maybe eight spaces for black cabs on the whole of the Quays, well away from the main hub of MediaCityUK.
“First of all the hackney carriage drivers had to fight to get those two spaces near The Lowry, now they’ve given us a site for four cabs at the side of the car park where no-one can see them” says Simon Whittaker “They are nowhere near MediaCityUK and no-one will know that they are there.”
Hackney carriage cab ranks being off-site of MediaCityUK will also have implications for wheelchair users who rely on the space in black cabs.
Salford Council’s Lead Member for Environment, Councillor Joe Murphy told us that “The Council are working with hackney carriage drivers to identify suitable locations for taxi ranks across Salford, including the area of MediaCityUK, to ensure that ranks meet the needs of the travelling public.”
This is totally disputed by Simon Whittaker… “If the Council is working closely with hackney carriage drivers identifying demand at MediaCityUK then why the hell haven’t we got a rank there?”
The answer is obvious. That despite the millions of pounds of public money that have gone into enhancing the Quays, the whole of MediaCityUK is in the private hands of Peel Holdings who control its private streets and the vehicles that are allowed access.
“There will be no taxi ranks within the MediaCityUK development but hackney carriages will be able to drop off” says Paul Newman of Peel Media “We are working with our public sector partners to ensure the best solution for Quays-wide taxi rank provision.”
Cabbies are not allowed to queue up if ranks are full, and with so few spaces on ranks at the Quays, they will be obliged to drive to the next nearest rank which is, amazingly, Salford Precinct.
“What the Council is suggesting is that we wait on the Precinct and hope that someone shouts loud enough from The Lowry or MediaCityUK that there’s a cab needed” laughs Simon Whittaker “It’s just a joke.”
Just hope those BBC people carry around their directors’ megaphones.
They’re going to be needing them…
Till next month, happy Easter? ffs.
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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