Taxi Driver Online

Town pair fined for running illegal taxi

A BROTHER and sister from Wigton have been successfully prosecuted for running an illegal taxi.

Craig Thomason, 36, who ruins Thomason Travel, and his sister Deborah Thomason, 44, were taken to court by Allerdale council.

On Friday, Carlisle Magistrates Court heard Mr Thomason, the proprietor, of Station Road, was licensed to operate passenger carrying vehicles (PCV).

But the removal of four seats in one of his minibuses meant the vehicle was instead classed as a private hire vehicle, which he was not licensed to operate.

In addition, Ms Thomason, who did not hold a private hire vehicle licence, was seen driving the vehicle on three separate occasions.

She admitted to Allerdale Borough Council officers driving an unlicensed vehicle as a taxi on a Cumbria County Council contract.

Mr and Ms Thomason both pleaded guilty to various offences in connection with the operation and driving of unlicensed vehicles.

Mr Thomason was fined £1,100 by magistrates and ordered to pay £100 costs. Ms Thomason was fined £450 and ordered to pay £100 costs.

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IDFIMH

Have I missed something here?

PSVs can have as many, or as few, seats as they like.

Just ask Mr Tuk Tuk.

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IDFIMH

But a PSV with eight seats or less is a different licence?

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

Mr Tuk Tuk has a fleet of things, none of them more than 8 seats, and runs them on the same national license as the buses on your streets.

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IDFIMH

I thought it was the small PSV legislation.

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

Alas my good friend no.

The legs just say that you can license just about anything as long as it has a tax disc.

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IDFIMH

There is a PSV licence to operate vehicles for hire and reward to carry 9 or more passengers.

There is also a restricted PSV licence which allows vehicles which carry less than 9 people.

I believe that the "full" licence applies to the person whereas the restricted licence only applies to specific named vehicles.

I know a PSV operator who can hire 16 seat busses from Europcar and use them for hire and reward if one of his vehicles is off the road (or unavailable).

I know that the restricted licence requires identification of vehicles to be used under the licence.

Maybe this company had a "full" licence and therefore were only licensed to operate vehicles with a passenger capacity of 9 or more.

Maybe the Tuk Fuks have a restricted licence which allows them to operate defined vehicles with a capacity of 8 or less.

Dunno though, I'm not stating this as fact ............... just my opinion based upon my own observations.

B. Lucky

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"Here's a simple solution. If you don't want to pay more for a premium service then wait in the queue, problem solved".
Skull on TDO

TF pi$$ed on his chips.

Bit of an odd one this, would depend on the details.
If the vehicle had more than 8 and was a psv, you can remove seats (to create luggage space) and it would still be psv IF the change was not permanent (keep the seats stored).
Or you could remove seats and get it re certified as non psv.

A full standard national or international licence allows you to operate any type of psv without being vehicle specific and you can operate under 8 seats (non psv) on you licence providing you mainly operate "big buses" (17 seats and over). There is a guide of 10% but nothing is specified as to what the 10% is i.e. numbers of vehicles or turnover or profit etc.
As far as I know it has never been tested in court although the "Excellent Connections" case did cover part of this and was found to be legal.

Confusion reigns

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you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

A friend of mine has received paperwork advising him that a large bus operator can run a small number of small vehicles, which even means saloons without any other license.
Now does this mean that if you run just one large bus you can operate smaller vehicles or do you have to have a large number of busses???????? There are absolutly no numbers as to how many vehicles this means.

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Grandad,

From what the Traffic Commissioner said to me is that once a Standard license is given, then as long as the vehicle is passed as being road-worthy (i.e. given a registration document), then anything can be used as a PSV.

The act simply says something along the line that they must be motorised, in the same way as the 1976 act says about PH.

I have no doubt if that wasn't the case then that Traffic Commissioner wouldn't have allowed the tuk tuks to operate.

And of course to compond this madness is the fact that the drivers of these things don't need a PSV driver's license as they seat less than 9.

Bus regs, pile of sh**.

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IDFIMH

But surely the 8+ vehicles have to conform to strict regulations that a tuk-tuk has no chance of meeting (assuming they could seat that many) - that's why the big limos generally can't get a PSV license, whereas the smaller ones can, as per the tuk-tuks.

Thus, coming back to the original article, once the minibus had the seats removed it ceased to be a large PSV and would need either a PH or small PSV licence?

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

I'm glad that you have joined the ranks of the banging your head against the f***ing wall gang, in relation to PSV regs.

To help out I guess the Carlisle van wasn't charging seperate fares, but if it was then it would have been A OK in my opinion.

If it wasn't for this;

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00038-ap.htm#265

Then in this country we would have next to no PH and 150,000+ extra PSVs.

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IDFIMH

I've been doing that for years, it's just that I've kept quiet about it

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

http://www.vosa.gov.uk/vosacorp/publica ... 202006.pdf

Read page 4 or 5 they have a psv for 2 vehicles