Taxi Driver Online

Remember that, as well as the cross-border stuff, the Law Commisson's approach was basically deregulatory with regard to private hire standards - the bare minimum, essentially.

And the DfT's guidance reflects that.

And Wolverhampton in particular took advantage of both the cross-border angle, and the deregulatory approach to standards, and we all know how that panned out.

So to that extent it's all a bit awkward for the DfT. There's plenty of non-specialist chatter on social media about CCTV being the solution to it all, effectively, and that it would never have happened if CCTV had been mandated years ago.

Bullocks, I'd say. But to the extent arguments like that have traction, then the DfT could be said to have been complicit in allowing the whole Wolves thing, minus CCTV, most obviously.

And, of course, Wolves has always been Labour-controlled, so that's another hugely inconvenient thing politically

(To be honest I gave up on the Law Commission thing and didn't really pay much attention to its final report and how it was all implemented because of its obvious capture and hypocrisy. I mean, it was basically bottom-of-the-barrel, free market, race to the bottom stuff for private hire, while retaining the HC cartels )

Not sure I agree with that; I mean, I doubt Wolves would ever have happened on anything like the scale it did, but for the *hundreds* of operators the length and breadth of the country using Wolves as a de facto national licensing authority.

I think Uber might have been able to use a Wolverhamton-style authority as a kind of national licensing body because it could use such an authority to badge and plate drivers from all over the country, and then they could work wherever they wanted, and everything Uber did would be via the one authority (as Delta did via Sefton for the whole of Merseyside years before the Deregulation Act).

(And maybe one reason they don't do that at present is because they adopted the purely voluntary geofencing thing. So they're basically doing a Delta in various regions, but there's nothing in law stopping them from doing it all from a single authority )

But for the 400+ operators from the likes of York and Blackpool using Wolverhampton to badge and plate drivers, they wouldn't be doing that but for the Deregulation Act. They're not national brands like Uber operating throughout the whole country.

(As I always say, the Act didn't enable cross-border/out-of-area working from scratch - it simply further facilitated it )

Bullseye.

I have one concern over changes and that is if all taxis and PH are forced to license locally is this going to create much greater dispatrities between conditions of license and costs between LA areas ?

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

The point I was trying to get across, clearly unsuccessfully, was that the abuse of cross-border hiring by taxi/PH firms predated the cross-border provisions of the Deregulation Act. The situation in Liverpool, where 1000+ Sefton PH worked, is a good example.

So repealing the cross-border provision in that act might appear to, in part, help out, in reality, it will be merely papering over some really large cracks.

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IDFIMH

When responding to the proposed Deregulation Act consultation we stated what the outcome would be if enacted and the Casey report confirms we were correct.

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I don't think anything will change as regards Cross Border. Yes, standards will be raised and like the report says, ''most drivers are law abiding people''...
Raising standards will probably mean dbs checks and the likes will be standardised and also by and large stop a driver refused by one licensing body getting licensed elsewhere. I believe there was already a database set ip where licensing bodies could cross check such drivers.
uber are too big and powerful and have very deep pockets to challenge whatever laws inconvenience their operations.

But raising standards isn’t the answer, and that’s from me, someone who loves the raising of standards.

You could have the highest standards of drivers and vehicles in the world, but if those drivers work 100s of miles away from the people with the duty/powers to enforce those standards they become irrelevant.

Standards sadly don’t stop rapists, catching them does.

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IDFIMH

ChesireBest, I can't really see the cross-border stuff NOT changing, although whether it's maybe fully that each trip must start or finishing in the licensing area is another question. That's essentially what we have in Scotland, but couldn't really see it going that far.

I could maybe see such a system with bigger licensing authorities in place, though - a Greater Manc area, Merseyside, or whatever, and PHVs are free to work anywhere within that area.

And, I mean, it's maybe not so much the Wolverhampton-style national licensing authority that's the problem; instead, it's more the standards thing, plus enforcement issues.

For almost thirty years now I've favoured national licensing standards, which would then be enforced locally, as opposed to the mishmash currently in place, particularly when cross-bordering really took off.

Anyway, while I fully agree with Sussex in one respect - the enforcement stuff and higher standards - I don't agree with the CCTV thing. Lots of reasons for that, but ignoring the more personal stuff it's also about the enforcement angle - it's a bit like the tints thing; yes, maybe it would be a wee bit easier to enforce stuff if dark tints are banned, but totally ignoring the much bigger picture.

It's like our council and the fire extinguisher sticker thing, while my favourite takeaway boss is parked on the rank all the time (fake taxi, anyone?) doing his karaoke bit with drunken students dancing with him on the counter, and him grabbing hold of women in full view of everyone etc.

But, I mean, if you don't have the fire extinguisher sticker that the council sneaked through via the small print then you're a dangerous ogre

...got a tad carried away there, and this is what I really logged on to post. It's transport secretary Heidi Alexander being questioned by Richard and Judy (sorry, I'm still stuck in the past ) about the cross-border stuff. And at least she sounds a bit realistic and proportionate about the whole kneejerk CCTV thing that's going on on social media

https://x.com/GMB/status/1934879050461249699

(And wasn't it strange the way the baroness referred to the informal 'taxicams' in her report - I mean, when do the likes of the DfT or licensing authorities refer to anything other than CCTV?

All of this bow locks goes back to what I've been advocating for years, a national set of standards set down in law for operators, drivers and vehicles. Like we have in the bus industry. It seems to wrk rather well in the psv trade. Any operator can take work from anywhere to anywhere in the country, but must have a fixed operating centre. When I had my own bus company, the operating area was London & South East. I could hire in buses with drivers from anywhere to help out on busy days, i.e. on a rail emergency service or pre-planned rail replacement. I could hire a bus without a driver for my own use.

Drivers would all have undergone the same driving test (though that has changed considerably over the years) and have the same medical. Vehicles undergo the same test process wherever they are in the country. What surprises me about the taxi/ph trade is the fact that any Tom dick or Ahmed can get a car and set up as a taxi form without even a basic additional driving test.

As for the fetish for CCTV everywhere, it doesn't prevent crime, it just lets the owner of the camera site watch the video of someone getting shafted in the car or bus from the luxury of his front room. In my opinion there's too many cameras spying on everything; if the resources that are put into CCTV control centres would be to put more police on the street, I feel the end result would be beneficial to all.

Think you will find that proprietors whether they have a driving license or not have to go through the DBS system to determine if they are a fit and proper person to be granted a license.

They do.

Guess what. Last night our licensing team reminded me that my wife who has been retired for quite a while now, needs to get a new DBS because her name is on our operators license. Doh