Joined: Tue Oct 21, 2003 7:25 pm
Posts: 37029
Location: Wayneistan
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Wayne’s World
By
Wayne Casey
The views in this column are not those of the National Taxi Association
‘Power doesn't corrupt people, people corrupt power’
William Gaddis
Being of Irish descent, it’s fairly easy (if not a god given right) to point towards the British state and cite corruption (as well as a lot of other things that are not allowed in a family trade paper). Sadly Ireland is as corrupt as Britain – indeed the entire Western world is corrupt – the sooner you all realise this, the sooner you will sleep easier, that is if you are even bothered.
The western world points its grubby fingers at African states where the corruption is at least somewhat honest.
A contract could be granted, but you build me a swimming pool and give me a new Mercedes, is the way some politicians flow in some countries, a benefit of the job, so to speak.
A significant proportion of our population are horrified, they get all mad about our country sending aid, whilst African politicians appear to ‘swan it up’. Without actually thinking about which particular western company is doing the bribing.
“That’s how these countries work innit”
In the West, such corruption is generally hidden from public view, it is on occasion reported, but people tend to shrug their shoulders and do absolutely nothing apart from the odd grumble.
The recent revelations by the Daily Mail, not a paper I actually read, but in fairness, they published eye-opening exclusive, citing allegations of a type of corruption that would perhaps make African dictators blush with embarrassment.
The Daily Mail article suggests of cosy links between the damn app company employee(s) and 10 Downing Street, it suggests pressure was put on the Mayor of London to drop proposals to further regulate the private hire industry in the capital.
Subsequently, although I’m sure it’s nothing but a coincidence, the proposals were dropped, although I suppose there is no link with the allegations and everything is all above board.
I have an awful lot of respect for London cab drivers, the sheer dedication required, the sacrifices made to pass the knowledge and to achieve the coveted green badge speaks for itself. If you consider it takes around the same amount of time to be a solicitor, it does rather say everything.
It is not therefore too difficult to understand how this group of decent hardworking dedicated people are very much in favour of standards, when their own are rigorously enforced, but have then stand by and watch the rules of others appearing to be bent very much in favour of the few.
The game does appear to have been rigged and very much against the cab trade.
In this respect, I do suppose we should smile and shrug our shoulders, because at least we played with a ‘straight bat’, so to speak. We should do it in the knowledge that it doesn’t matter what we say or do, how much we protest, or even how much of a case we made or make, the game is rigged, friendship and acquaintance count for an awful lot more than we can ever offer.
In all honesty (a novel word considering the allegations), I did kind of wonder if the game was rigged a long time ago.
I am reminded by the story of a friend of mine, who asked the local authority to alter a condition of license attached to PHV’s pertaining to a telephone number being displayed on a door sign. The company intended to be internet based, a call and phone number wouldn’t be appropriate.
The application was refused out of hand, leaving my friend open to challenge the council in a court expensive court case.
Let us face facts, going to court costs money, the councils know this, therefore with your ‘run of the mill’ firm it is a case of, ‘that’s our rules, challenge them (at your cost) or be damned’. The council knowing that the issue will, in most instances, be dropped.
Roll on a few months and the damn app arrives. Instantly rules are modified to suit the global app and ‘hey presto’ – no telephone number needed to be displayed on the door signs. Indeed, numerous other prerequisites of operator’s license were similarly dropped. All above board I’m sure.
Whilst I’m sure some of you are truly appalled by the shenanigans, I feel the need to ask you to open your eyes and follow the money, because in my experience of life, money is nearly always a motive behind things.
Training is an obvious and lucrative case in point.
I think at this point I am not going out on a limb if I write that every single licensed driver in the UK knows if they refuse a passenger with either a guide or assistance dog, without the necessary medical exemption, they know they are breaking the law.
I also think all drivers know, due to their byelaws or conditions, that they must offer ‘reasonable assistance’ to every passenger, either able bodied or disabled.
There you are, training done – send me payment of £50 please.
Neither me, nor you need to sit down in a classroom to be told this – if you need to be told this and want to be sat in a classroom, then perhaps you should go do something else for a living and maybe your DBS needs a little closer scrutiny.
I am very often reminded about what drivers say after taking these courses, quotes such as –
‘I learned a lot due to the course, I’ve been driving 10 years and it never occurred to me that swearing and cursing whilst using my mobile phone with a passenger on board wouldn’t enhance their experience of the trip and was no good for repeat custom’
Mr A, Wilts
‘The course was excellent, now I know I mustn’t insist on putting the guide dog and passenger in the boot’
R, Stornaway
Very few course attendees are going to say ‘Well that’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back’.
I am convinced that some local authorities are more interested in covering their backsides from criticism, adopting sillier and sillier courses, to the expense of the driver, new applicant and sometimes the state, than the overall cost to the people they license. Sadly, this is also the same in respect of certain organizations.
Moreover, there is always a company out there willing to offer such courses, it’s a cottage industry.
You can get trained in everything – well when i say trained, each local authority appear to adopt similar sounding, but different courses. If a driver who passed a disability course in Devon were to move to Cumbria, there is no guarantee the council in Cumbria would accept the course the driver passed in Devon, so he’s have to take another, similar course.
Do you see what I’m getting at here? There needs to be a national approach or no approach, because what we have now is stupid.
I will, no doubt, receive a degree of criticism for writing the above. Fingers will very probably be wagged for trivializing child sexual exploitation (even though I never wrote about that yet), I’ll be told that it’s a serious issue and drivers need to be trained to spot the signs.
I would counter that granting licenses to people with dubious pasts, or indeed those who have unknown pasts, because they haven’t been in the country for a decent period of time to establish any kind of track record, is equally as bad, indeed, I’d say it was actually quite stupid. In fact, I would go out on a limb and suggest unless a person has been resident in this country for a minimum of 10 years, can produce a DBS going back that length of time and has, at the very least, EU citizenship, they shouldn’t be granted any license.
Over the past 10 years I have seen more and more courses adopted, possibly with good intent (although that is debatable) and to what end?
I still read stories about drivers refusing guide dogs, refusing wheelchair bound passengers, speeding, various road traffic offences, allegations of sexual advances towards passengers and the list is pretty much endless.
Further to all the above, let me return to that damn app, because there appears to be a misconception, and whilst I have little time for them, I tend to believe that a lot of people are looking back to a time before it was here with rose tinted glasses complete with an added dollop of amnesia.
All of the ills I often talk about were around before the damned app arrived in this country, driver exploitation, CSE, disability discrimination, drivers needing tax credits in order to live, drivers doing excessive hours. These things are not a new phenomenon. Shame on those telling saying otherwise.
On a different tact, over the Easter weekend there were countless fights in the vicinity of taxi ranks around the country. This isn’t a new thing, in fact this sort of thing happens every weekend in virtually every provincial town and City. I therefore suggest placing police persons in close proximity to taxi ranks during these peaktime periods.
I do realise that this is revolutionary stuff, heaven forbid such a revolutionary idea may act as some kind of thing I like to call a deterrent. I also realise many of you are now in awe of my obvious genius, my application for crime commissioner is therefore in the post.
I wrote last month giving my views on emissions, the lack of road planning, the lack of infrastructure and in general the stupid direction we appear to be hurtling towards. In days gone by these eco loving green people would have been called hippies, indeed cyclists would have been described as homosexuals – I digress but still believe my previous assessment was correct.
The latest diesel emissions standard is euro 6, the SMMT recently stated;
“The latest Euro 6 vehicles are the cleanest in history – and light years away from their older counterparts. As well as special filters, they also feature clever technology that converts most of the NOx from the engine into harmless nitrogen and water before it reaches the exhaust.”
A full report is available on cleaner diesels via the SMMT website – http://www.smmt.co.uk
It appears to me that we are about to discard advances in cleaner technology towards a more expensive, unproven alternative. It also appears that the technology to further improve diesel engines is there – so lets not throw the baby out with the bath water.
Thankfully, a great many local authorities have some sensible people, obviously employing these folk goes very much against the grain of usual local authority employment practice, but their general input is appreciated. The very nature of the licensed industry is that vehicles are usually replaced every few years with newer vehicles and more modern, cleaner engines. I hope this fact doesn’t get missed when the green lunatics start beating their drums.
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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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