Taxi Driver Online

The Sentinel (Stoke)

August 28, 2007 Tuesday

Violent nights a punch in the teeth for our future

This week a woman was seriously injured in the city centre when she was run down by a private hire car following some kind of altercation. The police are still investigating, and I don't want to comment on the details of that individual case. However, it does bring to our attention the sad fact that every single Friday and Saturday night there is violence in the city centre. Indeed, there is violence every week in a line that stretches from the bus station along Stafford Street and down Trinity Street.

For years there has been rivalry between hackney carriage drivers and private hire drivers. If you get in a private hire vehicle which you have not booked via the base, then you probably aren't insured on your journey.

In other cities this rule is rigorously policed, and has become accepted by passengers. On Stafford Street our city permits what is virtually an alternative rank of private hire drivers illegally plying their trade, and competing with those who have spent thousands of pounds to acquire a hackney carriage licence.

This attitude to the rules has been justified to me on the grounds that it is the only way to empty the city centre, and to remove potential hotspots of violence. Actually, other cities have properly supervised night buses queuing up to take partygoers home in the early morning.

Simple solutions such as these will never be found until decision-makers find out what's really going on in the city centre at night. The problems will not be solved by consultants' projections of the nighttime economy, nor by new architecture (although design has a role to play).

Our city centre will continue to be a violent place where people are seriously injured and even killed, unless we join up our thinking. We must use council powers under the licensing system to impose discipline on things like private hire pickups and alcohol abuse. If we do not do this, we will injure not just individuals, but the livelihood of the whole sub-region. [/b]