Taxi Driver Online

Another Pendle piece, and a wee bit more about the mysterious app, but still no proper explanation. No doubt it's all in the official document, but...

And some obvious politicking - maybe stuff like this doesn't count as quasi-judicial, but the interaction between this kind of thing and the quasi-judicial dimension should be obvious merely from reading this, therefore unsatisfactory in terms of human rights law, natural justice and due process, blah, blah. In my opinion at least...


New taxi safety measures include penalties for telling 'lies and untruths'

https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashire- ... e-28888089

Drivers and company owners in some situations will have to appear before Pendle's Taxi Licensing Committee

New measures to improve taxi safety in Pendle have been welcomed and backed by borough councillors.

It comes after unannounced taxi safety checks in November and January found high failure rates with issues including worn tyres, brake problems, loose wheel nuts, loose batteries, faulty lights, seal belts and fluid leaks.

Taxi safety enforcement has been a source of debate, concern and disagreement between officials, councillors and the trade for some years. Updated licensing powers including penalty points and license reviews for taxi drivers or company owners responsible for breaches, ranging from spot-check failures to multiple vehicle breaches by taxi firms over a year, have been backed by councillors.

Drivers and company owners in some situations will have to appear before Pendle's Taxi Licensing Committee for licence reviews. A mobile phone app is to be introduced for daily vehicle checks with penalties for those who do not use it. There will also be penalties for people who lie or are 'untruthful' about taxi safety checks. Another measure is to extend taxi knowledge tests to include a test on the basic mechanics of cars.

The taxi trade has opposed introducing an app and had disagreements over who its own representatives are.

A total of 13 measures were backed at the latest full meeting of Pendle Council. Speaking there, Lib-Dem Coun David Whipp, the deputy council leader, said: "As part of the shared administration, we agreed there should be a review of taxi safety. I think this new report makes excellent suggestions. Recent checks have picked up a significant number of defects. If daily checks had been properly followed, the number of defects would have reduced significantly."

Conservative Coun Kieran McGladdery, who has raised taxi safety fears and frustrations a number of times in recent years, said: "I am absolutely delighted with this. This proposal was first put forward two years ago and has not changed since then. To hear Lib-Dems and members of the [taxi] committee supporting it, I'm truly delighted.

"It has been an ongoing issue and I have had some fierce debates, respectful but fierce, These changes should make an immediate improvement. Thank you for eventually getting to this decision."

Labour Coun Mohammed Iqbal said: "Councillor McGladdery is right to say there has been fierce debate. The failure rate was truly shocking under him. Taxi businesses have been given a warning and incidents have reduced. Some offenders have been dealt with by the taxi committee.

"But some of these new recommendations will put significant pressure on the committee. If taxi drivers are to be sent to the committee for not doing their daily checks, where are the resources going to come from? The committee needs to be capable of dealing with a surge of cases.

"Also there has not been recent consultation with the taxi trade, such as with training and the magical app. We had a presentation about the app from a Burnley company. But, as far as I'm aware, the council has never gone out to tender on this. There should be transparency. We should not just give a contract to a certain company."

Independent Coun Yasser Iqbal said: "I agree in principle about this. But it's the app I have some issues with and with recent consultation.

"Taxi drivers may properly check their vehicle in the morning but then suffer some damage if they hit a pothole, for example. This would not show on the app. Or a light bulb going out or whatever. But an inspector would find it later in the day. This type of situation needs some thought.

"Also is the app good value for money? Have we asked anyone else about apps? It has been railroaded through. Has it been properly looked at?"

Coun David Whipp said taxi safety proposals had been put forward in the past but Coun McGladdery had failed to get support from some other Conservative councillors. And one former Conservative committee chairman had used his casting vote not to implement changes.

Coun Whipp added: "No disrespect to Councillor McGladdery but I think there was an aggressive approach to driving this through, which I don't think helped. But there has been progress. Clearly, the taxi trade is hostile to this but I think there has been dialogue."

He added: "Some people have spoken about improvements to vehicle failure rates. But 50 per cent is still too high. Training with the app needs to be addressed. Hopefully, with safety improvements and the trade responding, there will be less failures and less of a surge of work for the taxi committee than perhaps expected. We need to grasp this nettle."

In a vote, councillors agreed the taxi recommendations.

Wondered why 'seal belts' were needed in a taxi, but maybe it's something to do with the likes of this



But at least they managed to spell 'brakes' correctly


Whatever way a car is checked, and however often, that's been the case for about a million years now


One to remember if any driver is ever accused of aggressive driving

And how are they actually going to enforce that FFS.

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IDFIMH

Wouldn't be surprised if the app is little more than the daily walk round checks that some councils require, and for which all is needed is a brief bit of box ticking, therefore widely abused and a bit pointless?

So instead of literally ticking a box with a ball point pen on a piece of paper, it will be completed on a smartphone touchscreen.

Which would achieve very little in terms of ensuring enforcement rather than cheating...and maybe all about style rather than substance, but some credulous officials and councillors think it would reinvent the enforcement wheel

Of course, it may record a few more details which couldn't be, er, manufactured, and thus would help in terms of enforcement.

I mean, imagine a driver on record as doing a school run at 8am, yet the walk round checks before starting the shift are recorded on the app at midday (which just happens to be the driver's lunchbreak).

Thus might not be quite so easy to game the whole system, but still not that difficult

Of course, it might all be a good bit more sophisticated than I'm thinking, but who knows?

really

far more likely driver gets in car switches engine on to defrost the windscreen and whilst sat waiting for that to happen gets out the app and goes tick,tick,tick job done. The app can't tell if the driver has ACTUALLY done the checks

and based on the regularity of cars in Pendle failing spot check operations I think the above scenarion is going to happen at least with some drivers

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Taxis Are Public Transport too

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Maybe the driver would tick the app boxes before starting the shift but without actually doing the checks, but I'd guess a more likely scenario would be doing it at a quiet time later in the shift.

But, of course, presumably if someone was to actually check then the driver might be caught out by the timings, because the time recorded by the app couldn't be falsified, unlike filling in a piece of paper with a pen at some time during the shift.

So it might encourage drivers to actually falsify the app box-ticking before their shift, rather than falsifying the box-ticking on a piece of paper with a ballpoint pen during or after the shift

But I'd guess that unless it's quite sophisticated it would do little more than affect the timing of the falsification rather than the falsification per se