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PostPosted: Wed Jan 12, 2022 6:03 pm 
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ERYC is East Riding of Yorkshire Council [-(


Calls to increase number of East Riding licenced hackney taxis

https://planetradio.co.uk/greatest-hits ... -increase/

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Image: ERYC/Planet Radio

A motion's being put forward to the County Council today by the Liberal Democrats

There are calls for an increase in the number of licensed hackney taxis in the East Riding particularly in the evenings.

A motion is being put forward to the County Council this afternoon by the Liberal Democrats.

Cllr Viv Padden is proposing it and said: “There is clearly a problem in getting taxis, particularly in the evening. The problems in Hull are well-known but we also have a problem in the suburban areas of Haltemprice and West Hull Villages.

"The Covid pandemic and loss of trade, meant many drivers dropped out of the taxi business and found other employment and in some cases returned to EU Countries. Brexit and the uncertainty created has meant drivers are not coming back from EU Countries into the UK. They and their families don’t feel welcome here.

"I want to see the Council doing what it can to try and restore the taxi service. One option is to reduce the licensing fee. On its own, it may not be enough but we need to see what other measures could be used to help such as the cost of the driving test and medical examinations. Our Group has been working with the ERYC Licensing Manager Louise Wilson to see what can be done.”

He says since September last year in the East Riding, there is 96 licensed hackney taxis, with 16 of those wheelchair accessible, although there are 164 private hires.

Cllr Mike Heslop-Mullens said: “In Bridlington, many of my residents including women and the vulnerable, rely on taxis to get them home safely from work. This is a matter of public safety. Because of the run-down of Bridlington Hospitals services, some residents are dependent on taxis to get them to public transport or in some cases to Hospital in Scarborough or York.”

    Motion to Council:

    This Council notes the difficulties being experienced in finding taxis in the East Riding of Yorkshire due to a shortage of drivers following Brexit and Covid-19.

    The Council resolves to:

    1 In line with its commitment to ensuring Safety for Women, girls, and all vulnerable people at night, recognise the importance of trying to ensure an efficient and effective taxi service,

    2 Request the relevant Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Committee to identify what measures can be taken by the Council, and other partner organisations, to support and help our taxi service.


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 12, 2022 6:04 pm 
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LibDem councillor wrote:
Brexit and the uncertainty created has meant drivers are not coming back from EU Countries into the UK. They and their families don’t feel welcome here.

Maybe the LibDem councillor should come here, where taxi drivers don't feel welcome because of, er, the LibDem councillors :-o


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2022 3:54 am 
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Kept on forgetting to post this slightly alternative angle from a few days ago.

Can't summon up the effort tonight to write 1,000 words in response to RTD, but the extended quote from the 'driver' at the end here provides maybe a more rounded assessment of the trade than some of the more lurid press articles posted on here. Of course, no two areas are the same, and I suspect his smaller town/suburban Hull* environment maybe won't reflect what's happening in some locations, but perhaps a bit more balance than the PR-oriented recruitment advertorial stuff from the mega-ops [-(

(*He's obviously under East Riding Council rather than Hull City, and no doubt the areas he serves are distinct locations, but looking at the map you'd be forgiven for thinking they were suburban areas of Hull.)


Call for More Taxi and Private Hire Drivers in East Riding

https://www.thisisthecoast.co.uk/news/l ... st-riding/

East Riding of Yorkshire Council is to explore what it can do to increase the number of local taxi and private hire drivers.

Measures to encourage more Taxi and Private Hire drivers to come to work in the East Riding are to be explored by the county council.

Councillors have backed a motion calling on the authority to identify what measures can be taken to support taxi services.

Councillor Kerri Harold says the lockdowns have made it difficult for many drivers.

At a meeting this week Councillors heard concerns that it is becoming increasingly difficult to get a taxi in the East Riding.

Liberal Democrat Cllr Viv Padden, who tabled the motion at the full council meeting, said many drivers were stopping work after 8pm because of a lack of jobs.

Councillors also said problems with taxi availability were leading to concerns for vulnerable people such as the elderly and women travelling home late at night.

But while Brexit and COVID were cited as reasons for a perceived fall in the number of drivers Councillor Kerri Harold said the numbers of drivers hasn't fallen that dramatically.

One East Riding taxi driver has said the industry is battling to recruit workers, contending with demand surges at peak times and pandemic pressures amid council calls to help.

Jon Wray, of Willerby Cars, said new recruits were put off by the months’ long process of getting taxi licences, with only around one in 10 applicants seeing it through.

He added taxis in both the East Riding and Hull were struggling to meet demand from people out at the weekend, causing some to be up to 40 minutes late.

Mr Wray said part of the problem came from the taxi licensing process but the pandemic, while largely sparing his firm, had sent many others under.

Mr Wray said:

“Getting new drivers is the battle at the moment.

“If you sit next to a taxi driver in their car and you ask the question most people ask, if they’ve been busy, they’ll say it’s rubbish at the moment.

“If you told them you wanted to become a taxi driver, they’d tell you not to bother.

“Of course that’s partly because they don’t want competition from new drivers but it’s also because getting a licence is long-winded, it takes too long.

“It can take up to three months, applicants are told to do this and then this and then something else, it’s not through any fault of theirs it’s the process itself.

“For people who are out of work, they can’t afford to wait three months, so they just go and get another job.

“We get enquiries all the time but we’re lucky if 10 per cent actually make it through the process and get their licence.

“Overall the industry isn’t particularly short of drivers at the moment, the problem is that in Hull for example it’s now a one night town.

“There’s plenty of cars around in the week, but it’s busy on Saturday and when everyone leaves pubs and clubs at the same time that’s when you get the shortages.

“Everyone falls out of the pubs at 11pm and the problem is people can’t seem to get to grips with pre-booking, it doesn’t matter if people book two minutes before or two hours before, it makes a difference.

“During the week there isn’t much work so a lot of drivers will take council school contracts to transport vulnerable or disabled children.

“They can’t be expected to wait around for work, they take those contracts so they can have some stability and then go and do what they need to do on a weekend moving people to and from the pubs, bars and clubs.

“During the pandemic I think our firm was particularly lucky, we retained a lot of our drivers so we haven’t done so badly.

“But there were some who did leave to go and do things like work for Amazon or deliver food.

“The vast majority of taxi drivers are self-employed, I think the government did well will the self-employment grants handed out through councils, we would have struggled if it wasn’t for that."


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2022 11:54 am 
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The problem with weekend work has always has been that due to under demand during 20 hours of the day and over demand for the other 4 hours that it becomes unviable for Taxi and PH firms to lay on additional vehicles just for 4 hours.....a matter further compounded by the rest of the week being quieter still and Covid making it even quieter than normal.

Unlike the Bus Companies we dont get such grants as the BSOG to cover our losses during the quieter times and we'd have to endure the costs of the laid up vehicles which would be required to meet 100% of demand for just 8 hours a week.

If they want that full cover then offer the trade similar grants as the bus operators get to cover our losses of laying on extra vehicles at peak times.


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2022 7:44 pm 
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Quote:
“If you told them you wanted to become a taxi driver, they’d tell you not to bother.

That's the standard reply no matter what the level of trade is.

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PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2022 8:04 pm 
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Location: Stamford Britains prettiest town till SKDC ruined it
what an awful vehicle livery why do these councils come up with such awful colours

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PostPosted: Sun Jan 23, 2022 4:52 pm 
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bloodnock wrote:
The problem with weekend work has always has been that due to under demand during 20 hours of the day and over demand for the other 4 hours that it becomes unviable for Taxi and PH firms to lay on additional vehicles just for 4 hours.....a matter further compounded by the rest of the week being quieter still and Covid making it even quieter than normal.

Unlike the Bus Companies we dont get such grants as the BSOG to cover our losses during the quieter times and we'd have to endure the costs of the laid up vehicles which would be required to meet 100% of demand for just 8 hours a week.

If they want that full cover then offer the trade similar grants as the bus operators get to cover our losses of laying on extra vehicles at peak times.


Correct.

It's why surge pricing should be used.

Problem solved.


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 23, 2022 4:57 pm 
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I have a better idea Liberal Democrats.

How about not having any licensed drivers and vehicles and let the free market solve the problem.

Drivers and operators will be able to provide a cheaper service to the public from the lower cost of operating which will create higher demand for taxi services.

This will increase driver numbers and as a consequence the market will become more efficient.

Less dead mileage and more time on the road working and less time doing nothing.

Increased profits to boot.

However, I won't waste anymore energy on the matter because you will only be trying to interfere more and more as we go forward.

Good luck with your objectives.


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 23, 2022 9:01 pm 
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Rebel-Taxi-Driver wrote:
I have a better idea Liberal Democrats.

How about not having any licensed drivers and vehicles and let the free market solve the problem.

Drivers and operators will be able to provide a cheaper service to the public from the lower cost of operating which will create higher demand for taxi services.

This will increase driver numbers and as a consequence the market will become more efficient.

Less dead mileage and more time on the road working and less time doing nothing.

Increased profits to boot.

However, I won't waste anymore energy on the matter because you will only be trying to interfere more and more as we go forward.

Good luck with your objectives.


Think you should read the history of this trade and why it came to be licensed.( keep stupid thought to yourself)


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 23, 2022 11:59 pm 
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heathcote wrote:
Rebel-Taxi-Driver wrote:
I have a better idea Liberal Democrats.

How about not having any licensed drivers and vehicles and let the free market solve the problem.

Drivers and operators will be able to provide a cheaper service to the public from the lower cost of operating which will create higher demand for taxi services.

This will increase driver numbers and as a consequence the market will become more efficient.

Less dead mileage and more time on the road working and less time doing nothing.

Increased profits to boot.

However, I won't waste anymore energy on the matter because you will only be trying to interfere more and more as we go forward.

Good luck with your objectives.


Think you should read the history of this trade and why it came to be licensed.( keep stupid thought to yourself)


In all fairness I don't know what reasons were given for the implementation of licensing in the trade. It's irrelevant, anyway.

My comments were not stupid.

Please explain your thoughts on why you think they were.


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 24, 2022 7:22 am 
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RTD wrote:
How about not having any licensed drivers and vehicles and let the free market solve the problem.

Chances of that happening? Less than zero. Heathcote is right. Look at the rationale for regulating the trade in the first place.

You may just dismiss that, but that's simply why your blueprint won't happen, nor anything even resembling it, so you're just wasting your time even suggesting it [-(

In fact, you don't even have to go back decades. Instead, just look at some of the cases on here. Here's one from my council area a couple of years ago:


Fake taxi driver jailed for abduction and rape of woman

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland- ... e-48884373

A teenage rapist who posed as a taxi driver to abduct and rape a woman on New Year's Day in Fife has been jailed for 10 years.


So a boy racer type is hanging around outside a nightclub, 'intoxicated' woman gets in, thinking it's a taxi, she's abducted and raped.

What you're suggesting would increase the chances of that kind of thing occurring, so even a few years ago it wasn't going to happen, never mind now, what with Sarah Everard, Rotherham and Telford, etc, not to mention the kind of cases reported in the local press every few days.

And a £10 flagfall in the early hours or whatever isn't going to happen either. In fact I'm surprised there haven't been attempts to regulate Uber-style surge pricing, but I'd guess that's because only a very small minority of people are paying big multiples, so to that extent it's considered tolerable.

If 3x surging (say) in the trade become the norm at times, I suspect the regulators would step in. Particularly because while Uber's model may clear the market, it's predicated on the basis that the vast majority of punters are simply waiting their turn for a more normal fare level. I doubt the politicians would stand for it if every 'reveller' was paying huge surge prices, which of course is why HC fares are regulated in the first place, and why the vast majority of PH providers avoid getting anywhere near price-gouging territory.

And, from the other side of the coin, the drivers are in enough danger at that time of night as it is, often because of issues with fares, so a free-for-all would further endanger us drivers as well.

OK, drivers might earn bundles for a few hours a week if they want to work into the early hours at weekends picking up the worst of the passengers.

But funny thing is that the Uber model is predicated on cheap fares the vast majority of the time, therefore...

And dereguatling the market would just make matters a whole lot worse in terms of driver's earnings the vast majority of the time.

I wholeheartedly agree that some of the regulation is over the top, particularly some of the ULEZ/CAZ stuff, not to mention daft colour schemes and self-aggrandising council logos etc.

But that's going to happen, and it's just a matter of timing and degree. For example, I don't think Euro 6 diesel is a particularly onerous standard for saloons (2015 year or so), the problem is that it's coming on the back of the pandemic, and councils have allowed fleets of scrapyard-level cars when it's suited their purpose. But now it's a 'climate emergency', and wee Greta's childhood musn't be 'stolen' ever again, blah, blah, so it's all change almost overnight.

But the impetus is towards more regulation, not less (apart maybe from satnavs replacing knowledge tests), so I'm guessing any undersupply will get worse rather than better, for the next few years at least.

HMRC's tax compliance checks from this April will have quite an impact, I suspect, and I'm further guessing that it'll impact most on the late-night, weekend market.

The Supreme Court's Uber ruling on self-employment will I suspect also widen out to encompass more of the industry, but the big question is how far it will extend, and the jury's out on that at the moment. But extend it will, and it won't just stop at Uber, Addison Lee and Bound's in Northampton. In fact, if Bound's drivers aren't self-employed, which circuit's drivers are? :-o

Not sure how the whole immigration thing will impact the trade either, but presumably the mass migration of East Europeans is over for a few year at least, and many of those who didn't go home for lockdown have moved on to other jobs like Amazon and Deliveroo.

So it would be uncharted territory even without the market shock of the pandemic, therefore even more difficult to predict the future. But certainly several obstacles on the horizon which could potentially worsen any undersupply issues, and impossible to tell precisely how that will pan out.

But deregulation ain't going to happen. And while all that's happened or about to happen will put upward pressure on fares, I can't see Uber-style surge-pricing becoming the norm either.

(By the way, no need for anyone to quote the whole of a long post like this further down the thread. Press the 'post reply' button and it'll appear in the same thread anyway :idea: Navigating these threads is like trying to read an interesting article in a newspaper you've brought your fish and chips home in :roll: )

(I had another comparison lined up involving toilet paper, but that that might be too much, especially at this time of the morning :-& :lol: )


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 24, 2022 1:35 pm 
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I am under no illusions.

The chances of it happening are close to zero.

But that doesn't mean it shouldn't happen and more people should be trying to encourage it.

In relation to what you have posted, yes customers get attacked and drivers get attacked.

Just look at how many victims there have been in the last 10 years to abusive taxi drivers especially sexual. There is a plethora of cases. And they were all licensed drivers. Wasn't John Worboys a licensed driver? Didn't stop him from committing his crimes.

So licensing or regulation does not prevent serious crimes from being committed. Does it reduce them?

Not sure. I would argue it does not. If the market was deregulated drivers would make more money and this would lead to attracting and keeping more professional drivers in the industry. In any industry where the pay is low you will attract people of a less professional nature and force out the more professional who will leave to earn more money elsewhere.

However, I have not seen or compiled any data to support my position for the taxi industry. But depending on how you look at it the signs are obvious.

A practical approach would be perhaps to find out by speaking with cab/taxi drivers who worked for many years before licensing came into law and ask them if there were many or any cases of drivers abusing customers and if the drivers before regulation had more of a professional approach in relation to attitude and dress code etc.

In fact, look at the number of drivers in the industry that dress in shall we say unsuitable attire for the job at hand. I have seen this everywhere in person as I am sure you have. Even some wearing pyjamas :lol: :lol: :lol: :roll: :roll: :roll: .

Do you think that is a healthy sign the industry is in? And what do the councils do? They introduce more regulation by stating no hoodies or flip flops etc. See here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=37898

Also, just look at how many taxi/cab drivers get attacked by members of the public. I myself was a victim of this.

Look into PHTM and every issue has reports of drivers who have been victims of attacks. You can't keep up with the numbers.

You can also see how many cases of drivers have been sentenced in the shame column of PHTM. Just look at the page from just the November issue here:

https://content.yudu.com/web/43sy4/0A43 ... gin=reader

All licensed drivers. And these are the only cases where drivers have been caught. How many have abused their power and not been found out? Licensing and regulation just make things worse. It's dificult to understand this because of the problem of recognising the correlation of regulation and its consequences. This is not just a random opinion I have formed. Many brilliant economists have documented this with evidence to support their claims.

Read "That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen" by the learned Frédéric Bastiat here: http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html

It is very short but the wisdom contained in his great writing will help you understand more what I am trying to show you.

With regards to Uber and their prices. PH companies are legally permitted to charge what they like. That's why Uber can and have been successful in their business model thus far.

But I wouldn't be surprised if the government/councils introduce a price cap for the PH trade to prevent Uber or anyone else from doing it again.

They are that stupid so I won't underestimate them in bringing that into force.

That will be a disaster if they do that.

A big part of drivers who are at risk late at night is down to many reasons.

Firstly, when people who have been drinking are waiting in the cold outside for their taxis they get frustrated. Everyone wants to get home quickly. Add alcohol into the mix and we have a dangerous concoction. I have seen this a lot as I am sure you have too where you work. Basically taxis/cabbies objective is to get people home as soon as possible. That can be improved only by higher prices.

If taxis charged more the waiting would be less. It would dynamically change the market and bring more drivers on the road at peak times.

Secondly, if prices were increased significantly eventually you would have a drop off in demand from the more vulgar types of society who on the whole are the ones that give cab drivers hassle.

Price them out so they get the bus or whatever. The race to the bottom has given the public the expectation that cab drivers are just there to be servants to their whims where they are treated like lepers in many cases. It is a profession whether people like it or not although the standard on the whole at present times is perhaps not where it should be. You know my opinion why this is the case.

An increase in prices would make it more efficient if done correctly. More people would be forced to share a cab on the way home and split the fare as opposed to hiring separately etc.


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 24, 2022 10:07 pm 
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In all fairness I don't know what reasons were given for the implementation of licensing in the trade. It's irrelevant, anyway.

Well, I would assume to stop rapists and thugs driving licensed vehicles, and sh** heaps and death traps from being licensed as vehicles.

Yes we still have some way to go to, but thankfully we have come quite a way.

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 24, 2022 10:14 pm 
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But that doesn't mean it shouldn't happen and more people should be trying to encourage it.

I think you are trying to wind us all up, so I will politely ignore you in future.

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 24, 2022 10:17 pm 
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Sussex wrote:
Quote:
But that doesn't mean it shouldn't happen and more people should be trying to encourage it.

I think you are trying to wind us all up, so I will politely ignore you in future.

The rule of chaos

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