Taxi Driver Online

Angie highlights taxi dilemma

A disabled councillor has highlighted the difficulties faced by wheelchair-users in getting around the borough by taxi — after finding herself stranded.

Oldham councillor Angie Farrell was left waiting 45 minutes in Moorside because there was not a suitable taxi available to pick her up. Now she believes more taxis should be equipped to collect passengers in wheelchairs — and be available day and night.

She said: “We should be able to go out spontaneously like everyone else and not be left stranded when we need to get home.”

Councillor Farrell encountered problems when she was trying to get home from the Waggon and Horses on a recent Tuesday night having earlier attended a family funeral.

Few local taxi companies are able to cater for people in wheelchairs but she called two firms, one in Rochdale and one in Oldham, which do have specially-adapted, London-style hackney carriages.

But the first company said it didn’t have any suitable taxis available that night and the second asked her to phone at 10-minute intervals until it was able to find one.

Having finally been told by the latter it couldn’t send a taxi, she decided to ask a friend to collect her in an adapted van. Ironically, a taxi did turn up as her friend arrived to take her home to Shaw.

Out of the 85 black cabs and 700 private-hire vehicles in Oldham, it is thought only about 25 are adapted for people in wheelchairs. Councillor Farrell expects she will have to rely increasingly on taxis in future following the death in May of her husband, Tony, who was a fellow Shaw and Crompton parish councillor.

She said: “Disabled people should be able to get home after they’ve been out for the evening. “There should be more wheelchair-accessible taxis available at all times of the day.”

Powers in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 allow regulations to be made requiring all new public transport vehicles to be accessible to disabled people, including those who need to remain in their wheelchair.

Regulations are already in place for rail, bus and coach vehicles and proposals for taxis are being developed.

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IDFIMH

January the first, 2012, would see all taxi's accessible it would seem.

However, how many TAXI'S will there be?

I don't know about you but London taxis are hardly wheelchair accessible A cobbled together contraption fit for the breakers yard is a more apt description.


I take it by the year 2012 that the London Cab will be a thing of the past.



Does this means all drivers will be insured by the local authority for any injury to the passenger or themselves?


I doubt it?

Well are you off then?

Will all the cabs in Liverpool, Manchester, London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh go?

They, as do you, manage to earn whilst driving WAVs. So why shouldn't others?

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IDFIMH

I suspect this particular Oldham councillor has just experienced what many disabled people like her in Oldham have experienced in the past. The solution as always lies in the council's own hands. It is they who apply the policy of restricting Hackney carriages to mainly saloon type vehicles and they have done so for many years.

In a recent response received by TDO from a leading Oldham councillor who was asked to justify their reasons as to why the public of Oldham are best served by limiting numbers and if they are happy that their policy does not discriminate against the wheelchair disabled, he stated that the council is happy with the present situation. However he was a little more outspoken than that but you will have an opportunity to judge for yourself when all these responses are finally published here on TDO.

I think his reply puts this issue into perspective and it amounts to the fact that in respect of Taxi provision Oldham councillors don't really give a chit about the people of Oldham, regardless of whether or not they are disabled. But of course that is their prerogative and they know best.


Regards

JD

What was to blame here? Was it the fact that Oldham's Taxi fleet is not 100% wheelchair compliant or the fact that the so-called double shift system didn't deliver the best service for this particular member of the public?

I was in Oldham last night where I observed there was only a handful of cabs working the Town centre. Those that were working were all Saloon cars.

I don't suppose for one minute that there is a 100% solution to every eventuality concerning customer deprivation of service but these councillors have to ask themselves "can the service be improved" and how do we improve it? From my limited experience of Oldham councillors and their Licensing department I don't think they have the will to improve it.

Time will tell?

Clearly the person who replied a) knows f*** all about the taxi trade, and b) know f*** all about the requirements of the visitors and residents of his district.

In other words, par for the course.

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IDFIMH

Sometimes you can appear to be so negative.