Taxi Driver Online

Started a new thread on this as the last one was getting a bit long and messy.


‘We will appeal to high court’

https://www.burytimes.co.uk/news/179267 ... igh-court/


HCA Chairman Charles Oakes

TRADE representatives have said they will challenge the licensing authority at the high court over its policy on taxi testing.

A judicial review could look into the council’s stance on vehicle compliance testing which was reinforced at a meeting earlier this month.

The council has agreed to carrying out a review and appraisal of its policy following requests to provide the trade with additional testing facilities.

But taxi drivers are calling for an independent review of the licensing regime, demanding that it is carried out by an external body and not the council itself.

Hackney carriage and private hire vehicles are tested at a council-run station which has temporarily relocated to Bolton after a fire at Bradley Fold Trading Estate earlier this year.

Charles Oakes, chairman of the Hackney Drivers’ Association, described the council’s testing regime as “anti-competitive”.

He said: “It’s about the confidence of the trade with how their vehicles are being tested and by whom. There are many good quality testing stations in the borough.”

Private hire drivers raised the issue at a council meeting two weeks ago, accusing the licensing department of failing to understand their “very serious concerns”.

Council leader David Jones told the taxi drivers that by the end of this year the local authority hopes to have a facility back up and running at Bradley Fold.

But he defended the local authority’s policy which requires taxis to be tested at the council’s own testing station.

He said: “Longer-term there’s an issue with the testing station run by the council – and we accept that you’re not comfortable with that. But I’ve said before to you and your colleagues that that ensures minimum standards. Having one testing station and no interest in repairs, means it can truly be considered to be an independent testing station.”

Mr Oakes said that Cllr Jones, who previously chaired the licensing committee, has “never been in favour” of having another testing station in the borough.

He said that taxi drivers do not want testing stations to carry out repairs on vehicles, they simply want them to carry out the same tests as the council does.

The Conservatives put forward a motion outlining how the licensing authority can better support the borough’s drivers.

This included opening an MOT station in Bury by the end of the year, reviewing the process of revoking licences and ending the “us and them” culture between cabbies and the council.

Licensing chairman Tahir Rafiq moved an amendment on behalf of the ruling Labour group which was carried and voted through by a majority of councillors in the chamber.

The amended motion commits to improving communication with cabbies and regular reviews.

Cllr Rafiq said: “At the moment we have one vehicle testing station as determined by council decisions policies and procedures agreed by all parties. If there was ever a growing need, justification, and commercial viability for a second station in the future it could be looked into, but it has always been about quality and standards, which mean safety and security for our drivers and passengers.”

Some of the comments are, er, interesting

I get the fellas have the hump, and for good reasons it would seem. However that's not a route I would advise them to pursue.

Even if they win, all the court will do is ask the council to reconsider their position, and it appears they are doing that anyway.

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IDFIMH

maybe that is the point the threat of a judicial review might make the council consider it's position because I doubt they can afford that either

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Taxis Are Public Transport too

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Sabre-rattling, I think the phrase is.

Doubt council will view it as any more than an empty threat, but makes it sound as if you know what you're talking about to the newspapers

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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!

There's a lot to be said for national testing standards as some have been arguing in favour of for quite a few years now.

This reminds me of the council run testing station in Liverpool called Breckside,which the council had to close down in the end. It used to MOT all of the council's own vehicles plus anyone who wanted a normal MOT of which there were none, and Liverpool hackney and ph vehicles. The personnel required to run this were two people on reception, one to book you in for your test or retest, and the other to answer the phones and to issue you with your pass or failure sheet. Then there were four vehicle testers, 2 testers per vehicle per test. Then there was the garage foreman and a workshop manager. You had to book in and would have to wait two to three weeks for your test and then probably another week if you needed a retest.
When they did a test there, they didn't test to pass, they tested the fail, ensuring they had a retest fee.
At the start of the year they had to submit a budget to the council for how much their running costs would be for the coming year. Some people believed that to cover the budget they would simply work out how many licenced vehicles they would have to test that year and then how many retest fees they would need to cover and make a profit for that year, basically putting the whole cost of the garage onto the hackney and ph trade.

Myself and other members of the trade who ran garages decided enough was enough, so what did we do?
First of all, to get a pass in Liverpool, you need to get an ordinary MOT issued by them, and then pass the compliance side of the test which again was issued by them, so the first thing we did was to get our vehicles prepped ready for test at our own garage and then passed them to another one of our hackney garages to make sure we hadn't missed anything, and then presented them for test. We also sent mechanics in with CCTV fitted into boxes and bags and then placed in the waiting room which overlooked the testing bays. One camera showed a hackney cab being brought in by two testers who spent five minutes on the vehicle and then turned on its indicators and left it for 40 minutes before they returned. We set up a programme so that when a taxi went into Breckside and was failed it was immediately taken to Kirkby, the main Ministry of Transport testing station, the people who issue the testing stations with their own licence, The MOT were testing them and passing them. Obviously we continued to make complaints about Breckside.

They had another couple of tricks they used to play, such as failing a vehicle for having a sidelight out and such, and then charging for a retest, but if you read the rules regarding an ordinary MOT you will see there are certain failures which you can go back to the garage with for no charge, so people need to look into how much these garages cost to run. I won't go into it any further at the moment, but the last nail in Breckside's coffin was a beauty!

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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!

this sounds like some of the VOSA/DVSA testing stations in their final years before everything was privatised. For bus testing, they had to be done at a VOAS/DVSA test facility. Standards differed from station to station, depending what the fetish of the month was. One month at Mitcham if was load sensing valves on Mercedes minibuses; electrical cables underneath that didn't have double insultation where they ran alongside fuel lines, despite being built that way.

Spot checks on buses and coaches have had vehicles given an immediate prohibition for a staple head protruding through an armrest, despite it having been there for 4 years to my knowledge; suddenly it presented a danger to passengers! On the M20, a brand new coach with an immediate prohibition for a pin missing from the entrance door step carpet; it could be a trip hazard. Another at the same place, an immediate prohibition because the emergency door was locked; this was despite the fact the driver had locked it before his break and got in the front to unlock it as the examiner walked round the outside. Petty stuff indeed.

Luckily the DVSA has now developed a system of operator compliance so compliant operators are less likely to get stopped at a spot check, and on the privatised test facilities failure rates have dropped considerably.

Where I used to get my PH cars tested in Folkestone, that is a private garage as the council tendered the service out as all councils are obliged to do. with 2 tests a year and about350 hc and 50-odd ph that makes the garage a good profit. the driver only pays for a re-test, not the test, that is included in the licence fee. The only problem I had with that place was an indicator bulb that "wasn't orange enough"! But then my cars were regularly serviced and safety checked elsewhere.

Maybe do an FOI request to see if the testing has been offered on competitive tender, it's illegal not to. . EU competition rules.

.

That is exactly what I was thinking

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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!

Thank you all for the replies and help

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C. Oakes


The Hackney Association Ltd
bbha@btinternet.com

Your welcome.

Keep up the good work, but stay away from lawyers.

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IDFIMH

Looks like the judicial review was quietly forgotten about, then


Taxi drivers in Bury aren't happy about new 'inspection manual' for controversial tests

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... s-17890302

Drivers whose cars fail the test have to pay for a re-inspection themselves

Bury drivers say a new taxi inspection manual aimed to clear up confusion over controversial tests will “not change anything” because the council sets its own standards too high.

The new manual, which aims to avoid ambiguity over why vehicles fail their inspections resulting in costly retests, is set to come into effect on April 1.

This comes after Bury Council changed its policy on tinted windows and the size of taxi licence number plates in a bid to address drivers’ concerns over safety.

Out of 507 possible faults in the inspection manual, 382 are the same as those on a standard MOT.

But around a quarter of the faults in the hackney carriage and private hire vehicle test inspection manual, a total of 125, are additional compliance requirements set by Bury Council .

Licensing bosses defended the controversial compliance tests claiming it is comparable to those set by other local authorities such as Salford, Sefton and Stockport.

Michael Bridge, licensing unit manager, explained why the council has created this new manual.

He said: “We have tried to react to what the trade has been saying to us for a number of years.

“There have been requests about definitions of scratches. Allegations that the testers are making it up themselves.

“At the moment, it’s a hand-written test sheet. The idea with the testing manual is when the tester completes the test, he’ll complete the test sheet so there’s no ambiguity when he or she presents that at the garage.

“The beauty of this is that it’s all in one place. There’s no ambiguity. They know what the vehicle is being tested on.”

Representatives of the taxi trade have long complained about the council’s compliance test being “unfair” claiming that drivers are being charged for costly reinspections.

Vehicle owners whose cars fail an inspection with 10 or more faults are charged £55 – the full cost – for a retest.

But licencing bosses said that only seven vehicles failed an inspection with 10 or more faults in the last year.

Of the 839 reinspections which took place last year, 639 resulted in no charge because the vehicle failed on three or fewer faults.

A total of 209 vehicles failed an inspection with four to nine faults, resulting in a £25 charge for a retest.

Mr Bridge told the licensing and safety panel that part of the problem is that drivers are not preparing their vehicles for inspection before they are tested.

He said: “From my experience of doing this job for 33 years, there are certain elements of the trade who will complain and it will come through to me saying it’s only failed because of a fault on one thing, but when you get the test sheet there’s nine faults that are on there that aren’t portrayed.

“I believe there’s certain elements of the trade that aren’t doing preparations for the test. They’re not doing any checks before it goes to Bradley Fold.

“We’ll see how it works. It may be that we create check sheets so they’d have to produce that for maintenance going forward.”

The new manual, which will come into effect on April 1, was unanimously approved by the licensing and safety panel.

It will be reviewed and a report will return to the council committee in 12 months’ time.

Speaking after the meeting, Bury Private Hire Drivers’ Association secretary Muhammad Sajjad said he was “frustrated”.

He argued that if councillors had their vehicles inspected according to the same standards, none of their cars would be deemed roadworthy.

Charles Oakes, chair of the Hackney Drivers Association said the new vehicle inspection manual would not address drivers’ concerns.

He said: “It’s not helping because I think they have been over-testing vehicles. They said they were testing over and above the MOT manual. That means that they were saying that they have a tougher line on their hackney and private hire than they would normally do with vehicles.

“I don’t think, personally, that it will change anything. Because there’s not a happy relationship between the trade and the MOT testing station.”

Licensing chairman Tahir Rafiq defended the decision to approve the new manual.

He said: “The whole idea is to give clarity so that anybody who is taking their vehicle to an MOT test knows what’s expected from them.”

Cllr Clare Walsh added: “This is a business. It goes above and beyond using a car for personal use.

"The cosmetic issue is important. Surely, without this part in a manual, we’d be in trouble.

"There’s a really serious element to this."

If that is the case then you have to wonder exactly what the problem is.

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IDFIMH

10 or more faults

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Taxis Are Public Transport too

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