Taxi Driver Online

Plymouth taxi drivers who refused fares facing legal action

Two taxi drivers who refused to take passengers home to Southway could be facing legal action. Plymouth taxi licensing officers conducted an operation which included carried out test purchase rides of hackney carriages over the last month.

Out of 17 taxis, two refused to take the test purchasers home to Southway. The officers carried out the operations following an increase in complaints about drivers refusing long journeys from the city centre.

The drivers will be interviewed under caution in relation to offences under the Town Police Clause Act 1847 for refusing journeys without reasonable excuse. Pending the outcome of any court case, they could then face the Taxi Licensing Committee so that members can review whether they consider the drivers to be a fit and proper person to continue to hold a taxi licence.

A spokesperson for Plymouth City Council said: “The vast majority of our licensed taxi drivers look after their customers and make sure they get home safely. All our drivers are vetted, enhanced DBS checked, have had safeguarding and ambassador training, for instance.

“Unfortunately we have received some complaints about drivers refusing to take customers to outer parts of the city or overcharging and some hackney carriage drivers not using their meter.”

The details needed are:

• the vehicle registration number OR

• the licence plate number – these are at the back of the vehicle and are white for a hackney carriage and yellow for a private hire vehicle.

• Private Hire vehicles also have the plate number on their doors

• Hackney Carriage vehicles also have the plate number on the partition between the driver and the passenger.

Further reports can be made on the Council website: www.plymouth.gov.uk/howdidIdo

_________________
IDFIMH

Had to look at that a couple of times.

_________________
IDFIMH

Can never get my head round that. If it's purely on economic grounds, refusals here are always the very shortest runs

Good example of a council using the t-word generically though (or bad example, more accurately). I mean, about seven uses of the t-word, and nothing concrete to say they're referring to HCs, or both HCs and PHVs.

In particular:

• "Plymouth taxi licensing officers"

• "the Taxi Licensing Committee"

• "The vast majority of our licensed taxi drivers"

Plymouth Licensing Officers, I suspect the Journalist added "Taxi".

Plymouth City Council named the Committee "Taxi Licensing Committee" - a bad descriptor, it does cover Taxi and PH.

In this instance they are meaning "Taxis".

The problem is apparently in the Night Time Economy. I don't work then myself, never have, but I am told the "Miscreants" want to do many short jobs round the extended City Centre and not trot out to the suburbs.

_________________
Chris The Fish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdlyi5mc ... re=related

Interesting.

As SW alludes to, in my experience it's the 'round the corner' jobs that get binned, not the 'out of town' ones.

_________________
IDFIMH

That's what I told people, Plymouth must be the only place where Drivers look for RTFC!

In 20 years my shortest job from a Rank, 120 yards. Longest, 357 miles. Never turned a Job down other than telling prospective passengers when I have a wheelchair booking within 45 Minutes before I ask where they are intending to go.

_________________
Chris The Fish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdlyi5mc ... re=related

Thanks, Chris, but since you may be aware that this sort of thing is a specialist subject of mine ( ) I checked the source before making my point*. And Sussex's post at the top is in fact an official Plymouth City Council news release

https://www.plymouth.gov.uk/newsroom/pr ... faceaction

And I hadn't found the Herald's online version at that point, but it simply seems to have rehashed the council's press release, including 'taxi licensing officers', so any over-use of the t-word here is largely the fault of the council

But another thing that didn't really click is that it was Plymouth and therefore your domain. So I was wondering why Southway was singled out rather than longer trips in general, and wondered if it might be a bad estate, or whatever, and to that extent it's more about that than distance per se.

But since you haven't said anything in that regard, and a quick Google suggests it's not a particularly bad area, I'm thinking it may be more of a geographical quirk in Plymouth rather than distance per se. Or maybe it was just a coincidence that the two refusals were Southway jobs, and it is a distance thing.

* Which in turn is why I usually include a link to the source, so that it's immediately obvious where it's from, or readers can check the original source themselves if they feel the need