Taxi Driver Online

The company that look after our HR rang me last week to tell me that we needed them to carry out a covid risk assessment to make sure we are compliant. he was saying that we needed to do this because by using hand sanitiser and disinfectant spray in the cars we could be non compliant with COSHH.
This morning he rang again and told me that the HSE had done checks on taxis on a rank in Carlisle and found that they were non compliant and had been ordered off the road and were being charged something like £127.00 per day until they were compliant.
Anyone from Carlisle able to shed any light on this? CC?

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Grandad,
old fart with no heart

Well if you're paying them to look after your interests in the matter then it'd be wise to take their advice though they allways have a horror story to push you into action.

Bill

they are pushing you to see if they can get you to part with more money.

Neither the HSE or councils can charge fee's for non compliance and as far as I am aware the official government stance is sanitise (hand wipes or spray) masks and social distance plus keep windows slightly open for air circulation

I suspect that they will give you an inspection tell you you are failing and then charge you an extortionate amount for unnecessary "compliance" work

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Taxis Are Public Transport too

Join the campaign to get April fools jokes banned for 364 days a year !

IO think I'd ring up Coshh about that one, though I can't see where Coshh would even enter into it..it's Hand Sanitiser not Nitroglycerin your using in the vehicles.

There is not a requirement for a logged risk assessment for TAXIS and private hire vehicles, all one is required to do is follow the government guidance on what to do after each hiring and whilst hired.

Unfortunately I think you may be right.

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Grandad,
old fart with no heart

To comply with rules, you have to be told what they are first. by the rule maker

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

Sounds like utter BS, especially the £127 daily penalty

The Government's HC/PHV guidance does mentioned self-employed drivers, and seems to presuppose that the vast majority of drivers are self-employed. Which is fair enough, obviously.

But half way down the page there's a section on 'PHV operators and taxi intermediaries that are employers'.

Employers have to carry out a risk assessment, but don't need to write anything down if they've got fewer than five employees.

As regards any employed drivers, the guidance just refers to the section for self-employed drivers, so employment status shouldn't really matter as regards what happens in the vehicle.

Anyway, even if an employer-employee scenario is unusual in the trade, I somehow can't see the drivers on the ranks in Carlisle being anything other than self-employed.

So can't see that it really matters whether drivers are employees or not, and if there was a COSHH issue with the basic trade scenario then I'm sure that would be mentioned in the Government's guidance, and we'd have heard about any problems by now anyway.

And can't find anything relevant on the HSE's website.

Anway, for anyone who hasn't read it yet, this is the basic Government guidance for the trade (in England at least):

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus ... s-and-phvs

The risk assessment for anyone actually employing people in the trade is here. Glad I don't have to deal with this, but without going through it in depth I can't see anything that would impact on basic use of in-vehicle cleaning materials and sanitizer:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... assessment

GD, I am a qualified BS COVID and Radon gas inspector

I can do your tests from home for £99/vehicle

happy to help

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Freedom is never free

I realised this morning that at the start of the lockdown we joined a scheme that sent us all the stuff that covers the risk assessment and a printed sheet to show what measures we had put in place for the drivers safety and the passengers safety in line with the Government guidance.

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Grandad,
old fart with no heart

As I said, if you’re already paying an HR company to protect the interests of your company from the possibility of someone trying to make a claim against you then you should do it.
Sadly it’s often the case that companies come off badly due to not being able to prove that measures were in place, even if most of it is only a box ticking exercise.
In my time in the taxi trade, I’ve had first-hand experience where smart arsed lawyers have taken companies to pieces over claims.

I've never heard anything, but I haven't been at work for a few weeks - will make a coup[le of calls and let you know

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

Spoke to my cousin who works the ranks everyday - he hasn't seen or heard anything

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

ive had days on the rank like that

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Freedom is never free