Was reading the 'About Us' page on the National Private Hire Association's website, which I'd have to admit I haven't read before.
http://www.npha.org.uk/about-us.asp
It's actually quite an impressive and compelling read, but this bit stuck out like a sore thumb:
Quote:
This is the reason we tell people that the "private hire" in our Association’s name does not refer to the plate on the vehicle, but rather to what the passenger does: hire the vehicle. We believe there is too much work to be done within all facets of the trade to single out one side and exclude the other.
What a load of bullocks. It's far from ideal in the context of the confusion between the two sides of the trade to have a representative organisation that purports through its name to represent one side, but in actual fact represents both.
Worse still, the explanation for this is horrendous - talk about contrived!!
What it in effect says is that the term 'private hire' represents both sides because in both cases the passenger hires the vehicle.
For an organisation that claims to be experts in trade law that's just plain awful. In fact it's shoving the legal definition into the gutter and giving it a good kicking.
I'd be more impressed if they said that they started off as PH-only, but started also representing the HC sector and this increased over time while it had then perhaps become a bit awkward to change the name, or whatever.
Or to save face, why not just say that they retained the name simply because that's how they started.
Or even just ask readers to note that despite the name they represent both sides of the trade.
And the secondary rationale - "We believe there is too much work to be done within all facets of the trade to single out one side and exclude the other" - has nothing to do with the name per se; all it's saying is that it's a good thing to represent both sides of the trade, which is a really a different issue to why the association's title is misleading.
