Taxi Driver Online

I have just received a copy of March 2004 PHN and I think the front page headline is irresponsible and totally misleading.
This type of scaremongering can only damage the whole trade taxi & PH.
Signage would not and does not have any effect on the number of attacks on customers. I personally think it makes it easier, making up fake signs would be simple, far better the customer makes sure the vehicle is the one ordered by asking the driver the booking details, name etc before entering the vehicle. Door signs give a false sense of security and cannot not be relied upon.
A gem from PHM " the idea of somebody having to walk from their doorstep or office in the pouring rain" to check a window sticker. Please don't hold back so much how about " a cripple wheeling their dying child across the M1 in a blizzard only to find a mad rapist with an axe in one hand and a copy of PHM in the other" now that's what we need to encourage lone females into taxis. PH cars have to be pre-booked so what are the chances of a rapist pulling up at the right time and place to match the booking or does PHM believe that there are lines of rapist's vehicles outside every home and office.
We all know every PH campaigner always jumps to the other side the second they acquire a hackney plate, it's always, I am in quick pull up the drawbridge. The saftey issue is being hijacked and misused to make PH cars as visable as taxis.
Check the Bournemouth local press it gives a punters guide to getting a PH car to take you home rather than queue at the taxi rank, full or dire warning about insurance cover etc. and telling punters that as long as the driver has a name to use the booking becomes legal. The best advert a PH could get. I get punters approching me saying " I know the score my name is "????" take us home". I refuse and continue to wait for the correct booked client. Honestly, I would swear on a stake of PHMs.
Yes there are dangers for lone females or in fact anyone wanting to use a taxi or PH but lets have some reality. Legislation only affects those that respect the law, touts, unlicensed vehicles etc operate outside the law and will only be stopped by enforcement and punishment.

Ken Rapists Charter.

Didn't a girl get raped and murdered by a bus driver a few months ago, does that not show that signs and purpose built vehicles are not a guarentee of safety. Scare stories like these only undermine public confidence.

Sounds like Watford where AA United have yellow stickers in their windscreens saying NOT PLYING FOR HIRE, when they pull off the sticker gets removed, when they pull back onto the station they put the sticker back in.

Clearly PHM has got carried away with the head-line, but I do think they have a point.

PHs have signage for customer safety, now many may not agree, but it's a fact.

If PHs do ply for hire, then it's enforcement that's required. Fine a few, catch a few, and word will spread. Only lazy and inefficient councils use the excuse, that proper PH signage is wrong.

I mean how will a customer know if the vehicle is the one they ordered, or a rapists car, if all they have is a poxy little sign in the window, and exactly how hard will that be to copy?

A phone number on the side, is not plying for hire. If that was the case, then all you HC boys and girls, should have magnetic door signs, which you should take off, when not in your own area.

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IDFIMH

Signage for customer safety is bullshit we all know it.
Proving a PH is plying for hire is very difficult to prove and the chances of being caught are remote, the rewards far outway the risks.
The customer knows the right car because the driver will know thier name, it is far better the customer makes this simple check before entering the vehicle, that is far better than getting in because the vehicle has a sticker or door sign.
Any markings on a PH make it more visable and punters will approach it if they think they can get a ride home.
HC should remove their door signs when out of area: thats fine with me and lets have the taximeters out of PH cars and PH adverts out of the taxi section of yellow pages etc. and when a PH driver commits an offence lets have him called a PH driver and not a taxi-driver as is always the case now. There are doulble standards everywhere in this trade.
The solution is to abolish the 2 tier system. But this needs to be done in a controlled way, suddenly flooding the market is no good to anyone.

They have got more chance of being caught if they have signage.

Still some elements of the trade are happy with customers getting into an un-licensed vehicle. Then if anything goes wrong, they can come out with all there pious ranting, when in reality they are as much as to blame.

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IDFIMH

Absolute nonsense.

What happens when a pub/club/restaurant etc etc calls a cab for the customer?

Are you really saying that mistakes wont happen, cos they do now with un-marked mini-cabs, and far too many people are assaulted.

Dark ages mate, you are living in the dark ages.

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IDFIMH

You can either have a one tier, or a two tier, you can't have a one and half tier.

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IDFIMH

So how would a bogus taxi know there was a job there ? MORON
Signage has nothing to do with it.

So you want to destroy rather than reform ?

Really, are you saying that a bogus taxi wouldn't lay in wait outside a row of night-clubs, cos they do now.

But if a customer knew the licensed vehicle sent to pick them up, had the firms number on the outside, then you could have a hundred bogus taxis plying, but the customer will know which one isn't bogus.

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IDFIMH

I tell you what, spend a day or so reading M&R, then come back and say exactly what (other than the monopoly premium) will be destroyed.

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IDFIMH

What is really bad about this months PHM is that I, a member of the Association haven't got it yet and you lot have.

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry

Most of it has been on TDO anyway Tom.

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IDFIMH

Most customers dont bother to check, they are either too [edited by admin] or could not care less who picks them up. They often phone more than one company anyway. A rapist has only to hang about any town centre at closing time there are plenty of young attractive girls so [edited by admin] they can barely stand up. They don't need to pose as taxis. This whole argument about signs is a joke and bears no resemblace to the reality. Blame attacks on the vast amounts of booze, the ladette culture etc. Stop using it as a reason to make street pick-ups easier for PH cars. You may fool politicians and those outside the trade that mean well and think they are making late night travel safer but no-one in the trade beleives a word of it.