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Wayne’s World
By
Wayne Casey
The views expressed here are not those of the National Taxi Association
Nobody can really doubt the huge rise in social media in recent years. Nowadays it seems everyone has either a facebook or twitter account, giving their own views very often in 140 characters or less.
I think the true crux of the matter is that people very often spout complete and utter tosh, little wonder Donald Trump cites fake news, because if twitter is anything to go by then the cab trade is constantly bombarded by it.
A good number of folk on social media tend to follow others who have the same views as their own, understandable, yet this will undoubtedly lead to war, death, destruction and a nation of psychopaths.
It would appear, certainly in respect of the cab trade that almost everyone is now an expert on taxi law, or feel they know you from a few articles penned in this paper (obviously forgetting previous publications I have written for).
Incidentally, I choose to write, nobody pays me to put my thoughts into words (I wouldn’t want paid anyway, that would make it like a job, and a job becomes a chore). I don’t write for rags, as one wag put it, because that’s not polite terminology anyway. Do people know the effort behind this paper or any trade magazine? The dedication required is phenomenal.
Getting back to the social media aspect. I have recently seen tweets quoting previous law cases, potential changes to law and suchlike, to outlaw the likes of the damn app company.
I hear and read people complaining about vehicles licensed from many miles away sitting waiting for pre bookings. It is almost as if this phenomenon is relatively new.
I have news for you folks, it isn’t new, it’s always been here, the only difference is that now we can (conveniently) point a finger towards a disruptor in chief.
Vehicles have always sat in Liverpool that were licensed by other areas, vehicles have always done the same in Manchester and Newcastle, there is no reason to doubt the same has always happened in Birmingham, London, Leeds and every other large City.
I think we had better have a short history lesson here, because the level of bullshit, misinformation and fake news appears to have many readers confused.
So let’s spin back a few years to a meeting of the House of Commons transport select committee, all the minutes are still available on the parliament website if you use a PC and have a penchant for self harm.
The select committee, similar to the legitimate taxi trade were at the time concerned about drivers (predominantly former private hire drivers), going to areas that had ‘soft’ licensing regimes. Berwick Council were at the time one of the key ones seen as relatively soft. These licensing authorities would issue hackney carriage proprietor and driver licenses to vehicles and drivers who they knew perfectly well would travel many miles away and work as private hire vehicles.
Whilst the legitimate hackney carriage trade believed the spirit of the act was being abused, many private hire operators actively encouraged the practice – very often pointing their drivers towards the licensing authorities who didn’t seemingly care where their taxis were being used.
Indeed, the private hire operators representatives at the committee accused the legitimate taxi trade of being luddites, stuck in the past, pointing out there was no substitute for modern technology and modern technology didn’t see man made licensing boundaries.
Newcastle City Council were a tad miffed, most of Berwick’s vehicles were seemingly being used in their city, indeed, they were so miffed they took Berwick Council to court. The judge decided that a council could, nay should, put an intended use policy on applications. This effectively meant that a licensee was expected to use the license in his or her own district the majority of the time.
As the decision of the court was merely a suggestion, some councils continued to issue licenses to ‘out of town’ drivers, the new soft target was Rossendale, although South Lakeland, Copeland, Gedling, South Cambridgeshire and numerous others continued the practice.
Because of pressure the government of the day called the Law Commission to not only look at current taxi and private hire law, but to draft a whole new act. Again, the cab trade pointed out the dangers of cross border abuse whilst the private hire operators were broadly supportive of passing bookings across district borders. The Law Commission report subsequently was kicked into row Z.
The next notable event was the deregulation act, as you will all be aware this allowed private hire operators to pass work to other private hire operators across district borders. Previously forbidden in respect of provincial private hire law, but strangely permitted, in respect of London private hire law.
Now enter a damn global app company, with more money, more business savvy and more technical know how.
From being overall supportive of the deregulation act, a good number of PH operators have become wholly against it. They point the finger at the damn app company, the taxi trade, rather strangely, appears to take the side of the former adversary. The fight becomes one of the damn app company against the taxi trade, the business reality is that on the whole the customers the app company are actually predominantly PH customers.
Indeed, as the damn app company is taking private hire drivers from private hire companies, this is arguably more the concern of private hire operators.
Naturally the taxi trade aren’t happy with the global app company, our towns and cities are seeing each day private hire vehicles enter that are licensed sometimes hundreds of miles away. Reports suggest when these vehicles aren’t working the app they’re illegally plying for hire. This is broadly similar to what the ‘out of town’ hackney carriages were (and continue to do) elsewhere in the country.
The bones of contention are many, one example is in respect of the actual operator’s license granted by the local authority, although the terms and conditions of these licenses do slightly vary from area to area. For many years private hire operators have been expected, for example, to have a landline for complaints etc, perhaps a warm ventilated waiting room, records on hand to be inspected 24/7 by licensing officers and so on.
Along comes the global app and these regulations other operators have been expected to adhere to are seemingly dropped. The global app doesn’t need a waiting room, it merely needs a broom cupboard, big enough to hold a computer that dispatches work to its drivers.
If, like me you’re a person who asks questions, we should perhaps now consider the deregulation act. The innocent enough reason for it coming in, as explained by the government of the day, was along the lines of a private hire car breaking down out of area and the original operator not being allowed to call an operator in another district to complete the journey, thus inconveniencing the passenger.
When I heard the explanation given by the government, I laughed for precisely 35 minutes. In the 40 odd years of provincial private hire licensing, I cannot recall a single prosecution in under the circumstances explained above by the government. Doubtless, the judiciary would fall around any courtroom laughing if such a prosecution arose.
As it was patently obvious that once the deregulation act became law that we would see vehicles licensed practically anywhere in the country effectively working other areas, you would think it logical that the government would have empowered a licensing officer from say Birmingham, to have the power over any licensed vehicle entering the district.
This didn’t happen, and whilst councils in Merseyside and West Yorkshire have somehow managed to draft agreements where they are empowered to inspect each others licensees, it would appear other areas haven’t. In fact, as we see vehicles from literally hundreds of miles away working elsewhere, any agreement made would have to be nationwide.
Now if we presume we have some kind of nationally authorised licensing officer we could have a scenario where the officer walks up to a out of town private hire driver sitting parked in London.
‘Evening Sir, what are you doing parked here some 120 miles from your area?’ says the LO.
‘I’m waiting for a job, the customer is in this restaurant’ says the driver.
‘Who is your operator?’ asks the LO.
‘A certain global app company’ replies the driver.
‘Have you his telephone number for your operator so I can check what your telling me is true?’ asks the LO.
Can you now see a problem?
Further to the above there has to be questions asked finding out if work is actually transferred from area to area.
My understanding to the act is that an operator in London can pass a job to another operator licensed in say Brighton, the Brighton operator then supplies a Brighton licensed vehicle with Brighton licensed driver. The three licenses matching as per court cases.
However, if the Brighton licensed vehicle is sitting in London and the job is in London we surely only have the word of the operator telling us the job was sent from the Brighton office. Whilst I am sure everything is legitimate and the job was sent from a computer in London, to a computer in Brighton and in turn to the Brighton vehicle and driver sitting in London. It would seem unless you’re a technical geek, nobody would actually know who dispatched the job.
Getting back to the unstaffed operator bases. Is nobody alarmed that a licensing officer would have to make an appointment to go to an office and inspect records, presumably at the convenience of the operator?
I don’t know about you, but it’s nice to see in a world of truly horrible events that we have all of a sudden become all trusting in one and other.
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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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