Taxi Driver Online

The cancer spreading "Mr Big's" are more prominant in the P/H sector though Mr Sussex Man. These are the people seeking world domination, these are the people financing cars for their drivers but selling them on for massive profits, these are the people charging the drivers for each and every one of their actions which are normally against the drivers own rights, particularly when drivers hold a H/C licence which allows them to work without paying these "Mr Big's" to work from their offices. There are no millionaire H/C owner drivers but there sure are some very wealthy P/H office owners. These are the people who will benefit most following deregulation as independant owner drivers will be forced to work for such people to feed their families, and more importantly pay the relevant office fee's.

Please try to associate a human face to H/C plateholders, instead of this "monster" image you are so keen to project. They have wives and families to support, yet you seem happy to see these people forced into financial difficulties by burdoning them with extra payments for a loan they took out in good faith. Councils are currently issuing H/C plates without ensuring any sort of provision for these plates to work, in some areas H/C numbers have increased so dramaticlly that the ratio for numbers to rank spaces is 5 cars per space. Then when drivers need to park behind the ranks, on double yellow lines, to queue for work the local Police and Traffic Wardens threaten to issue them with parking tickets.

Un-met demand isn't the only "public interest" that should be considered, rank provision, if ignored, leads to increased congestion within our town and city centre's, a fact ignored by the OFT yet, very possibly, of greater concern to the people who are effected than the length of time they have to wait to get home after nightclubbing on a Saturday night.

You don't think, and that is the real problem.

1- Are you in fact not looking to jump a queue by eliminating it?
2- Are you working for a P/H operator who charges you to provide you with work?
3- Will you eventually own the office you work from when you have made a certain ammount of payments?
4- On recieving your plate would you work only from a designated taxi rank to ensure that the massive un-met demand you claim is met?
5- Would you purchase a new WAV to obtain a H/C plate?
6- Would you expect to be able to sell your vehicle when you have finished paying for it.
7- Would you expect to have proper and sufficiant facilities to operate your H/C?
8- If you were to get a H/C plate would you complain if the cab in front of you got a longer job than you picked up?
9- Do you think that life in general is fair, or that we live our lives on a level playing field?
10- Do you think that your neighbours lawn is greener in colour than yours?

Numbered questions duely delivered, try to answer them without resortng to insults whether they be personally directed at me or any of the groups trying to properly represent the requests of their membership.

Lets try to anticipate your answers.

1- Yes I am but its different becuase I don't want to pay for it.
2- Yes
3- No, but thats not the point.
4- No I would do exactly what I liked.
5- No (see answer to question 1)
6- Yes.
7- Yes.
8- We should all be exactly the same.
9- Yes life in general is fair but I can't get a H/C plate and I want one cause its not fair if you don't give me one.
10- Yes.

This your dummy Sussex

Should someone set up a PH office and then not charge for it then?

Surely someone who sells a hackney plate is doing just the same thing - charging for work.

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There is Significant Unmet Demand for my Opinion.

Which is exactly why the market should be freed up.

Then those that have no choice but to work on a PH circuit, can work independantly on their own HCs.

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IDFIMH

I have no problem with any human face of HC trade, it's the system that is [edited by admin], not the drivers.

Of course they have wifes and families, as does every PH driver I know.

If your only defence of this system, is that it will financially effect those in the club, then although some may think it's a honourable defence, in the real world it's a highly flawed one.

As for rank space to HC, I think the national average is one space for every six HCs.

But all this is just a big fat red herring.

If people can't earn in the HC trade, or for that matter the PH trade, what the flip are they doing in it.

Tell them to go and get another job.

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IDFIMH

I think the OFT report deals with the scare-mongering issue of increased congestion, and they say it's all rubbish.

I would think that when a customer wants a cab, they couldn't give a monkeys about increased congestion, they just want to get home as quickly as possible.

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IDFIMH

1) The end of the system of restricting numbers, will mean no-more waiting lists. Thus it would be very hard to jump something that's not there, and how to you know I'm not at, or near the top, of the local HC waiting list? Not all of us are self-serving.
2) Yes, untill the big D day.
3) No.
4) I will work from where I'm licensed to work.
5) Yes, if everyone else has too.
6) Yes, in the same way anyone else would trade in, or sell their vehicle, when buying a new one.
7) Yes, in the same way as the local HC trade at the moment.
8 ) No, in the same way I don't when the chap in front of me as a PH, gets a corker.
9) Of course life's not fair, if it was then I wouldn't be on here.
10) No.

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IDFIMH

[edited by admin]

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IDFIMH

But Andy7, how many councils do you know that restrict the number of operators?

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IDFIMH

Marvelous responses from Sussex Man, they were evrything I have come to expect from you, total and utter spin, round and round we go, and back to the same old BS.

"I think the OFT report deals with the scare-mongering issue of increased congestion, and they say it's all rubbish."

So why do we hear of a threat from local Police that H/C drivers ranking up, but not actually within the designated spaces, will be ticketed as from Monday due to the congestion their presence causes.
Proper provision is as important to any new perspective licencee as actually obtaining a licence, without the work his new licence is as much use as his old P/H plate.

"I have no problem with any human face of HC trade, it's the system that is [edited by admin], not the drivers."

Yet the majority of plateholders are drivers.

"But Andy7, how many councils do you know that restrict the number of operators?"

I know of 2 applications for planning permission which were refused by the local council, for a variety of reasons but including car parking provisions in both cases. 1 appealed and was eventually granted planning permission to operate between 06:30 to 00:30.

"4) I will work from where I'm licensed to work."

But does that mean that you will work the designated taxi ranks in order to satisfy the claimed un-mat demand.


You just want your cake and be able to eat it Sussex Man, I knew that you wouldn't be able to respond without personal insult as that is to what you always resort when people request a straight answer to a straight question.

Well at least my stance and viewpoint stay the same, unlike those that sell their plates, and then get a free one from the council.

Not content with just that, they then ask the council for a saloon plate, when all the others have to buy WAVs.

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IDFIMH

Well if you spent more time lobbying the council for more rank space and better conditions for you members, instead of keep banging on about restrictions, then perhaps your current predicament would have been solved a while ago.

But as per normal, the union only acts when it's too late.

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IDFIMH

Well if you can't work out the difference between someone being refused on planning ground, and someone being refused on numbers ground.

Then I think you best go back to school.

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IDFIMH