Taxi Driver Online

Grand National taxi drivers investigated over rip off fairs

“RIP-off” taxi drivers who were charging Grand National racegoers a minimum £60 fee are to be investigated. Complaints began to reach trading standards officers almost immediately after Saturday’s big race.

Punters said they were finding their pockets a lot lighter as taxi drivers charged inflated fees to drive them away from the races. Thousands of travellers faced lengthy waits at Aintree railway station as racegoers left the course over the three days and there was no shortage of takers for cabs.

But some crafty cabbies appear to have been setting their own illegal fares charging £40 and even £60 flat rate fees for journeys as short as the five miles to Lime Street in Liverpool city centre.

According to the official hackney carriage rates for Liverpool a day time pick up from Aintree to Lime Street should cost around £9.30 meaning affected race-goers had been ripped off by up to 570%.

But many people who wished to make a complaint had not taken the cabbie’s licence number. A spokesman for Liverpool city council said: “We received a lot of calls after the Grand National but were unable to help most of the people because they had no details of the specific incident or cab.

“We do have several people who do have the licence number of the cab driver and we are investigating. “We can only investigate specific instances, not Liverpool taxi drivers as a whole.”

Tommy McIntyre, UNITE’S national rep for taxis, said: “I don’t think there are nearly as many of these people out there that people think. “You hear people talking about it but not many can give a licence number. “Having said that it’s a stupid thing to do.

“The Grand National is bigger business to us than Christmas and New Year rolled into one “The average fare is £3 in Liverpool and without those customers we’d starve. “As a trade union we’d love these people to be reported to us, with licence number, so we can get them out.”

Three cabbies are currently under investigation.

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IDFIMH

The fares are across a district boundary......unethical.... however, if the fare is agreed beforehand?

CC

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

Damn pikeys

CC

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

20,000 plus people left Aintree racecourse and were cleared within three hours... 50 yards from the main gate across the dual carriageway is a brand-new train station that had trains running every 10 minutes with extra carriages... it was a beautiful sun shining day and most people were in a very happy mood... people waited up to an hour for a taxi and still gave the drivers very generous tips.... But Unfortunately there are some that are extremely greedy..... no complaints about Sefton drivers though....

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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!

[sic]

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Kind regards,

Brummie Cabbie.

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