Taxi Driver Online

I wrote these last year, can't remember if I posted them

Who says the transport select committee don’t do humour

By

Wayne Casey

I’m very often accused of writing about miserable things, not quite as miserable as the editorial duo of the doom twins, but miserable nevertheless, so I thought I’d start with a bit of humour.

Two dwarves are on the town for the night when they meet up with two ladies. One thing leads to another and the dwarves manage to take the ladies back to their hotel.

The first dwarf is in a bit of a state due to drink, and no matter what he just can't get an erection.

To make it worse, he's right next door to his friend, all he can hear is, "One... Two...Three.... wheyhey!! One... Two...Three.... wheyhey!!" eventually he falls asleep.

The next day the two dwarfs meet up at breakfast and share their stories.

"It was so embarrassing," said the first dwarf, "I just couldn't get it up."

"You think that's bad?" replied the second, "I couldn't even get on the bed!"

Okay, never let it be said my articles are bereft of humour, talking of humour, the transport select committee recently gave us a report about how they’d like to see the taxi and private hire trades future pan out.

Effectively, the entire report was good for only toilet paper within 24 hours due to the Law Commission announcing their intentions to review taxi law. Now that’s what I called joined up thinking!

Whilst some might say there’s no substitute for modern legislation, they seem to forget recent modern legislation has proven to be actually, quite crap. The equality act has more amendments and adjustments than an old tarts cleavage.

There was little mention of London in the report, I wonder why? Perhaps London isn’t the be all and end all?

Reading the report, it was easy to quickly come to the conclusion that the MP’s are in fact all completely mad. Indeed, it is quite possible the only reason they probably joined the transport committee was because of a greater perceived opportunity to lick windows on buses.

Unsurprisingly they tell us they want both the 1847 & 1976 acts replaced with a single Act or legislative reform order, covering both taxis and PHV’s.

They want local authorities to have the power to issue fixed penalty tickets for drivers committing misdemeanours, surprisingly this is supported by Unite the union. This is something that really rankles me.

Local Authorities seem to want this power for two reasons, primarily the Guildford case states the local authority cannot charge enforcement against driver license fees; secondly, they seem to reckon taking a driver before a committee is a laborious process which may not always get the result the licensing department want.

My own school of thought is that if a council department cannot function without fining cab drivers, they need to seriously look at their finances, heaven forbid should they run out of paper clips because they couldn’t find a driver not wearing his badge!

Indeed, bearing in mind whilst they have mooted the idea of fining drivers, they haven’t as of yet mooted a process of appeal, which bearing in mind we would be a non criminal offence we would be guilty until we prove ourselves innocent.

Naturally the biggest thing seems to be suggesting illegal plying for hire is no longer a criminal offence, with a fine similar to that of dropping litter.

Amongst the more generalised crap the select committee seem to have come up with is one of taxis playing a role in the local transport plan, which is what this writer has been stating for the best part of a decade, not only me but successive Heads of the DFT have said similar, yet we are treated by local councillors on LTP committees as complete morons.

They suggest local authorities should work together and any legal barriers currently preventing this should be removed. I find that very amusing as it suggests they can’t actually be bothered to find out if there actually are currently any barriers. Indeed, bearing in mind a good number of local authorities regularly work together already, perhaps we better hope there aren’t any barriers, heaven forbid they’ve been acting illegally!!

Again, they rather confusingly want larger licensing areas but at the same time want locals running it, a somewhat bizarre position to say the least.

In terms of cross border hiring they state a local authority should attach a condition requesting the vehicle is worked within the licensing area, which strangely enough is basically what the law already states!

All in all there is nothing constructive, nothing worthy of note and nothing of use from the select committee for the taxi trade or indeed, the taxi public.

Wayne Casey

_________________
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin