Taxi Driver Online

Working group plans could herald end of cabbie woes


"BRAKING" news – a new era of harmonious relations may be dawning between taxi drivers and Cheltenham Borough Council.

Plans are afoot to set up a working group giving cabbies the chance to sit down with licensing officials and enforcement officers at the authority to discuss their woes.

It comes after Hackney carriage drivers said relations between the parties had reached an "all-time low" amid a chronic dip in trade.

Many drivers are struggling to bring in more than £30 a day from arduous eight-hour shifts and say the council has been guilty of heaping extra costs on top of them.

But with a working group, which could be set up later this month, they hope their voices might at last be heard.

Di Mitten, secretary of the town's branch of the Hackney Carriage Association, said: "It is a step in the right direction.

"Relations have not been good between us and the council over the last few years. A lot of the time we have felt that they just aren't listening to us.

"We have to pay more and more to keep our vehicles licensed and on the roads to the point where demands on drivers are unreasonable.

"If it means they can understand our situation a bit better then I'm in favour of it."

Last year more than 100 hackney carriage drivers signed a vote of no confidence in the council's licensing office. Their criticisms included lax enforcement, which allowed private hire vehicles to encroach upon their trade. They also accused the authority of issuing too many taxi licences, diluting the amount of custom.

Drivers were left at the end of their tethers when the council told them they would have to bankroll a new scheme to crack down on unlicensed drivers. They were also told vehicles more than eight years old must now go through a "fitness test" every six months costing more than £50.

Licensing committee members discussed the issue at a meeting yesterday. But Trevor Gladding, community protection manager at the council, emphasised that drivers would have to come along to meetings to have their opinions heard, after previous attempts to negotiate had failed.

source: http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/Working-group-plans-herald-end-cabbie-woes/story-13763491-detail/story.html

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

Well I never.

I wonder who worked out this master plan of actually sitting in the same room and working towards (hopefully) a better future.

Or more importantly who is to blame for this not happening 20 years ago?

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IDFIMH

So who attended this then;

http://www.cheltenham.gov.uk/downloads/file/2337/hackney_carriage_minutes_301110

their fairy f*cking godmothers?

CC

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

Group to take taxi issues


IF taxi drivers in Cheltenham want the council to understand their problems, they must not turn their back on discussions.

That is the firm message from the authority, which is planning to set up a working group with cabbies to help address issues affecting them.

It comes after drivers accused the council of enforcing policy changes which made it too expensive to keep their vehicles on the road.

But Trevor Gladding, community protection manager, said previous efforts to open talks with drivers had fallen on deaf ears. "Over the last year Cheltenham Borough Council has organised forums and surgeries for taxi drivers to discuss issues surrounding policy changes," he said.

"A working group was also set up to discuss MOT changes. There are approximately 300-400 drivers in the town yet attendance at these meetings has been extremely low with only around 10 drivers being present.

"When we have held consultations, again the response has been minimal."

The working group could be set up later this month.

source: http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/Group-taxi-issues/story-13787830-detail/story.html

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

Says everything about this trade.

CC

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

You can understand drivers attitudes, hold all the consultations you like, without any really large sizeable turnout we may as well pee to into the wind, councils will still do whatever they want, but they can then say, they "consulted"

Whilst I think your sentiments are right, the apathy is within the cab trade, not within the council's.

CC

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

But tis the obstructive manipulation of council officers holding all the cards that causes Apathy within the trade, as they grind the trade further to poverty the will of resource disappears to leave a clear, but ugly slanted field.

By absence of reply I have to assume all blame of apathy is with the Taxi trade.

I should like to think, though it may not be so, that all Taxi drivers have exactly the same aspirations to escape this rut that's developed. But they cannot find that "Guardian Angel" that normally appears like a Jack Hargreaves during a quiet night on the rank. If they step outside the box, their comfort zone, they are doomed to fail to get the changes needed. If they spend hard earned cash on representative organisations how do they trust instinct that its a right move on the backdrop of hidden agendas and self interests that abounds sometimes without foundation. If they locally organise themselves they do not have the power to voice until over 50% of trade membership and have many thousands in the bank. They are all rabbits in the headlights, hesitating, whichever way they turn it seems to be the curtain...