Taxi Driver Online

‘Malicious’ speeding claims made against taxi drivers

SEVERAL West Yorkshire taxi drivers have been subject to false complaints of dangerous driving, it’s been revealed.

An unspecified number of “malicious” claims were lodged with Wakefield Council’s licensing team this summer by passengers, a meeting was told on Wednesday.

The complaints alleged that the drivers in question had been speeding.

However, tracking data used by the council later proved that this was not the case.

A separate complaint from a passenger who claimed his taxi driver had kept him in the vehicle was also deemed to be false, the local licensing committee heard.

Council licensing officer Christopher Burnett said that since April, “We’ve had complaints of drivers driving at high speed dangerously.

“Those have been investigated by the enforcement team.

“Because of the GPS system in many of these vehicles now, we’ve been able to establish that those complaints have been made maliciously.

“No further action was taken.

“We also had a complaint from a passenger who felt he was kept in a taxi when he shouldn’t have been, and that was also found to be malicious.”

In separate developments, the committee was also told that nine local taxi drivers had had their licences either suspended or revoked following other complaints that had come to light.

Mr Burnett said a number of those cases remained ongoing and therefore further information couldn’t be provided.

However, he added that five written warnings had been issued to drivers over the last six months for smoking in vehicles.

Others have also been reprimanded for driving away from the scene of an accident, “poor behaviour” towards a member of the public and failing to properly display licensing plates.

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