Taxi Driver Online

Cross border crackdown on rogue taxis by six councils begins

http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/n ... ls-begins/

A NEW partnership will see local authorities in the area working together to make it more difficult for taxi and private hire drivers to break the law.


Cross border enforcement is welcomed by Shabbir Master of the Hackney Carriage Owners and Drivers Association (Image: Telegraph & Argus)

The five West Yorkshire local authorities and York have agreed to a joint enforcement partnership scheme which will ensure action can be taken against any driver licensed by any of the six councils where ever they are operating within the combined borders.

Until now if one of the authorities checked a private hire or hackney carriage taxi licensed by another authority there was little they could do to stop it being driven illegally or unsafely.

But due to the new partnership approach, appropriate action may be taken against a driver by the authority they are working in at the time.

The cross border enforcement is the first of many projects the six authorities – Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, Wakefield and York - are working on to support the taxi and private hire trades and improve the safety and comfort of their passengers.

The range of offences covered includes: driving without insurance, picking up passengers on the street who haven’t pre-booked, driving with vehicle defects such as defective brake lights or bald tyres, displaying incorrect signs so that it is not clear the vehicle is a taxi, smoking whilst sat in the taxi, and driving without the correct licence.

Councillor Sarah Ferriby, the Council's executive member for healthy people and places, said: “When you get in a private hire vehicle or taxi you should be confident that the vehicle is safe, well maintained and that the driver is licensed, insured and trustworthy.

“The only way to guarantee that is to have a strict set of rules that are regularly enforced.

“It makes absolute sense to carry out cross border enforcement – when we travel by private hire or taxi we do not restrict our journeys to one area, so licensing authorities shouldn’t restrict how we enforce the rules around driving those vehicles.

"It is worth saying that the majority of taxi and private hire drivers and their vehicles are safe and comply with the law.

“For them this change will have no impact. It is those who believe that the law doesn’t apply to them, who selfishly drive without considering the safety of their passengers, who will notice a change.”

Shabbir Master of the Hackney Carriage Owners and Drivers Association in Bradford, welcomed the move, but called for drivers who passed a check in one authority to be given a seven-day receipt which could be produced to enforcement officers in other authorities.

This would prevent the same vehicle and driver being checked multiple times in the same week as they travelled through different council areas.

"The changes are welcomed by the taxi fraternity in Bradford," he said.

Apart from the incorrect signage, was an enforcement partnership really required for the authorities to tackle the above issues, and in any case are these matters really the responsibility of LOs?

Surely a ph picking up off the street without pre-booking in another area can be treated as an unlicenced private hire car and the matter dealt with by the authority that catches the driver? Much the same as a private car picking up someone who believes it is a ph or hackney.

If we had a national set of standards enforcement would be much simpler.

for those not licensed within the borough they were operating YES

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

But these matters *could* be dealt with by police, surely?

- "driving without insurance"
- "picking up passengers on the street who haven’t pre-booked"
- "driving with vehicle defects such as defective brake lights or bald tyres"
- "driving without the correct licence"

As Roy asks, who deals with a member of the public using an unlicensed vehicle?

"smoking whilst sat in the taxi" surely more the domain of environmental health officers, or whoever the LA has appointed to directly enforce the smoking ban? I mean, if such an officer sees a driver smoking in a cab, it's as irrelevant where they're licensed as a van driver smoking, surely?

So that just leaves 'incorrect signs', which rightly are more properly the domain of taxi licensing officers.

Of course, all that's not to say that there aren't overlaps between the areas of enforcement responsibility between different agencies, and obviously cross-border partnerships will help regarding purely taxi licensing enforcement, but my point was maybe more about a lack of enforcement generally, and the lack of police interest (and manpower) regarding things that they could deal with, but effectively leave to other agencies.

But these matters *could* be dealt with by police, surely?



Police can't even be arsed to deal with robberies,assaults burglaries what chance these minor issues ??

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

Indeed, that's kind of what I was getting at, and why I emphasised the word *could*.

So the whole cross-border enforcement partnerships thing is a bit too narrow, but it suits those involved to ignore the wider dimension. And of course when police do want to get involved in such matters, then they do, but the other 99.9% of the time...

But interesting that in the article and video in the Glasgow PFH thread the licensing chair is calling for more police prosecutions, so a bit odd that a person with such status should have to say that in public.

And the more normal official approach is just to say nothing and pretend policing is all hunky dory, and all that's needed is a cross-border enforcement protocol for licensing officers, or whatever.

I'm struggling to understand why central government haven't brought forward legislation to allow LO's from one area to enforce in another.

I'm also struggling to understand why, in the meantime, all councils aren't allowing adjoining councils to enforce in their areas.

The first sentence might take a few years, the second sentence could be sorted in months if councils got their fingers out.

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IDFIMH

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

This is more about harmonisation of standards rather than the enforcement in the first article, but not really a lot to see here.

Taxi rules in Leeds and West Yorkshire ‘should be harmonised’

https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/ ... -1-9367348


Image: Yorkshire Post

Plans to standardise rules for taxi drivers across the region will go before councillors next week.

A report is set to go before the council’s licensing committee which lists West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s proposals to “harmonise” taxi and private hire vehicles across West Yorkshire and York.

Plans include standardising driver training and CCTV rules. They also propose to make it more difficult for taxi drivers to get a private hire licence if they’ve committed past offences.

The council says it is hoped the proposed measures will improve passenger safety.

A report going before councillors stated: “The council has made good progress in improving and maintaining the safety of the travelling public in Leeds. However, because of taxi and private hire issues which span local authority borders, we will only make further improvements if we work more closely with neighbouring authorities. ”

While CCTV in vehicles is not mandatory, the report adds there is more it can do to simplify rules and encourage drivers to take up installation.

The proposed policy also includes a table which indicates the length of time which would normally be required to have elapsed between a conviction and an individual being granted a taxi licence.

It suggests increasing the length of time for violence from eight to 10 years, and for drugs supply from nine to 10 years.

The report concluded: “The officers and members at the West Yorkshire and York licensing group have identified two policies which, if we can deliver them, will improve the safety of the travelling public. The policies focus on driver training and on convictions and suitability of people to hold a licence.”

A consultation on the proposed policies is set to last until December this year.

Well that'll make a shedload of difference



Looks pretty limited in terms of change and harmonisation. Perhaps indicates that changing and harmonising vehicle standards (say) is easier said than done.