Taxi Driver Online

TAXI OPERATOR HAS LICENSES TAKEN AWAY

From Evening Telegraph, Dundee, 2 December 2004

A taxi driver and operator, who fitted a switch to his vehicle which allowed the odometer to be turned off, had his licenses revoked today by Dundee City Council's licensing committee.

Philip Carlin was deemed by the committee to be no longer a fit and proper person to hold licenses after hearing a list of observations submitted by Tayside Police.

In a letter to the committee, Chief Superintendent Ian Alexander said that, during an examination of Mr Carlin's taxi, he was asked if he had any device fitted to the vehicle to stop the recording of mileage.

Initially he said that he did not but, as the vehicle was being searched , he said there was a switch fitted by the centre console.

When asked to show the officers, Mr Carlin located a small rocker switch hidden behind the center console to the rear of the taximeter. He said he had fitted the switch himself.

A complaint had been made by a passenger in a previous vehicle operated by Mr Carlin that the mileage was not being recorded on the odometer.

Chief Superintendent Alexander said city records showed Mr Carlin only ever kept a taxi for one year, and the previous complaint referred to a car which had since been replaced twice.

Among the other observations reported to the committee were that a prohibition notice had been issued to Mr Carlin after a front tyre on his vehicle was found to have less than the legal minimum tread.

Committee convener Bruce Mackie moved that both Mr Carlin's licenses be revoked. The members agreed unanimously.

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Dundee rocks. Almost.

I maybe wrong here, but I always thought that the oddometer was not a legal requirement providing the speedo was working
I ran a cab with the oddometer not working for 6 years, was never asked at MOT or taxi test when the council took the mileage if this was working, does someone have it written down in law, surely if you own the vehicle and have no intentions of selling it on you can do what you like with the oddometer.
Anyway what business was it of the customer having a ride in the cab???, will it be next the customer is reporting you that one of your dash panel lights are out

I think there is more to this case than what is said, the oddometer would not affect the taxi meter.

But then again the Council need the correct mileage of the oddometer to keep records to give to the Inland Revenue don't they ???

hes clocking the car must be illegal.
council right not fit and proper, it was done with intent, not just something broken.

hang him high

Yes, further reading into it, he is moving the vehicle on after a year, you are right "A clocker", where as mine was I couldn't be ars*d to renew the item

regards.

Your original point was interesting Highwayman - as far as I can see it's not an offence to tamper with the mileage unless you're a dealer selling to the public.

But maybe they just thought that clocking the car made him not fit and proper, especially as (as you point out) he was shifting the cars once a year.

This bit about the passenger seems a bit dodgy as well, especially as it seems that the incident happened a couple of cars ago - why did it take this long to come to light?

Perhaps it was one of those vehicles with a central dash - I couldn't see many punters noticing it in a standard car.

Maybe one of the Dundee lads will know the score

with all due respect thats bollox

he was intending to decieve, inland revenue the council and the poor person hes flogging the car too.

Jesus you hammer companies on here for slightest thing and real villans are protected

taxis and cars going to test have milage recorded why?

would you want this man as your son in law?

TDO wrote:





Thats it then I am not going a cnother second hand car

Seriously is it not illegal for anyone to clock or are ya just pulling me plonker TDO

Yorkie is right, there is a big difference between just having a broken odmeter and delibratly fitting a switch to stop it from working.
although i am confused as to how it came to light.

I cannot believe i'm going to do this..........

I actually agree with yorkie

regards

Captain cab

Believe this operator has done this for years,he is well known in Dundee for this.
His drivers confirmed this as well.
It is illegal to tamper with the mileage reading and to be quite honest,he did not require to do this as he is a wealthy man in his own right.
God knows why he still wanted to taxi,he has a £250,000 flat over looking the Tay river and other properties beside this.
Just a greedy,greedy man,and no sympathy from this poster.

No wonder you drive people off here.

You seem incapable of distinguising between someone trying merely to state the law (as I was trying to do) and making some kind of moral judgement (which I tried to avoid).

Either that or you ignore this, and instead just say these thing to stir up trouble, but either way wouldn't be surprising.

No I wouldn't him as a relative, but how you imply from my post that I might, I do not know.

The point of my post, particularly in response to Highwayman's point, was that it wasn't entirely clear on what precise legal basis the committee was proceeding, particularly since (as it seemed) that clocking a car in these circumstance was not necessarily any kind of criminal offence.

Well I think a lot depends on what happens when you come to sell the car - if you misrepresent the fact that the odometer shows the true mileage then it shouldn't really matter if it was because you took action to clock it or you just neglected to fix a broken odometer - from the buyer's point of view it's irrelevant how the mileage came to be wrong. If in the latter case, however, you inform the buyer of the true mileage then there's no problem.

Please note that this is just my opinion, not a statement of the law.

Looking at the report, I wouldn't be surprised if it was an ex-driver or someone in the trade who had heard about this and decided to spill the beans. As I said, the gap between the incident complained off and the action taken seems baffling - maybe someone who knew for definite about his earlier car later decided to tell the authorities some time later.

Well when I read Highwayman's point last night I had a look on a Trading Standards website, and it said:

"If you buy a vehicle and the odometer reading is incorrect, a criminal offence may have been committed if the seller is in trade or business."

"If a private seller 'clocks' a motor vehicle, you still might be able to claim compensation, although they will not have committed a criminal offence."

Note I said that it wouldn't be an 'offence' for a private seller to clock the car, but this doesn't mean that it's legal, since a buyer could claim compensation.

But from the licensing point of view that we were considering, if it wasn't an offence then the committee's stance on the matter wasn't entirely clear from a legal point of view, hence my original post.

However, I had a look on another site earlier today, and it said:

"If an odometer reading is incorrect an offence may have been committed under the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 if the vehicle was supplied or offered for supply IN THE COURSE OF A TRADE OR BUSINESS.

"If a private seller ‘clocks’ a motor vehicle then an offence may have been committed under the Theft Act 1968."

This clearly contradicts the first statement, so it's clear (!) that the law isn't that clear on the subject.

But there are probably dozens of statements on various websites (the above two were Neath/Port Talbot and Oxfordshire respectively), so if anyone is interested and has the time then it shouldn't be difficult to find lots of info on the subject.