Taxi Driver Online

I don't think discriminating against one half of the HC/PH trade has a beneficial effect on anyone, bar the selected few.

It also has a detrimental effect of the service to customers (as my friends from OFT confirmed), which should wake up all sections of the trade.

But it wont, as there is none so blind, as those with there heads in the sand.

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IDFIMH

Do you read Cab Trade News?

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IDFIMH

I think Cgull in Brighton, and the yellow boys at Heathrow, know the answer to that.

Both it would seem backed by unions.

The workers united, I fear not !!!!!!

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IDFIMH

No permits anywhere in my manor mate, nor will there ever be any, particularly if they exclude anyone who has the right to work there.

B. Lucky

Did the OFT mention the length of time people have to wait when booking P/H. I was going to go out tonight, every P/H office in my area told me I couldn't have a car at 7:30pm, the earliest available was 9pm. I asked why so long and the clerk said that only half the cars had turned in. I then contacted an office not so far away with apparently the largest fleet in the area, "no problem mate" I was told "7:30pm thats no problem" well I'm still here waiting and its nearly 8:30pm, I've been on the phone twice to be told "he'll be there in two minutes" hang on cause I'm phoning them now ........................................."he's been and there was no-one there" what a set of lying swine, I'm going to get changed and go out to work.

And you sit there in your P/H car and tell me that the H/C population let the customer down, your having a f***ing laugh Sussex aren't you.

B. Lucky

No, the OFT didn't look into the time it took to gain a phone booking, but you knew that already.

But say they did, and they found that the times customers waited were far too long.

What would you want them to do about it? Have more vehicles out, but the PH trade is already de-limited. Pay them more for coming out, but the prices are not fixed by statute.

Or would you like to see PH standards fall, because that's the only other thing they could have offered.

Is that what you want to see?

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IDFIMH

Have you been saving that one up?

Alas if you read what I said, then you used it up in error.

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IDFIMH

Sussex ............man.

My point is, I'm surprised that I have to spell it out, that BOTH sides of the trade HAVE to make people wait during busy times in order to make up for the quiet times. So we all run late when its busy, I understand that, its called the taxi business.

I feel though that YOU don't want to achnowledge the fact that during the busy times you make YOUR punters wait IN EXACTLY THE SAME WAY THE H/C drivers do. The ONLY differance is that your punters are left standing for longer cause you've illegally picked up a better fare than the one you were sent for.

Having enough vehicles licensed to cope with the peak times allowing punters to get taxis on demand makes driving such vehicles unviable as a full time occupation, as the demand for passengers for taxis accounts for a much larger proportion of the working time of ANY driver.

I believe your argument that a deregulated P/H system cannot cope with demands placed upon it only proves that a deregulated H/C system will follow the same path and customers will still complain when they have to wait 20 minutes for a taxi when they leave the nightclub. The thing is that they would probably book a P/H vehicle if they could be relied upon to wait for the fare they are given by their operator.

Every single action you condone has an adverse re-action on someone else, but as long as you get more cash in your bag that night who cares about tomorrow, great phlosophy that mate.

B. Lucky in 04

Yes, you seem to be making the same point that some of us have been making for ages ie that de-restriciton won't make a huge amount of difference workwise overall.

But Why should some have a closed market and others effectively told that they must either jockey or go PH (although many plate holders) would have no trouble with the second avenue being closed off completely).

Dusty

I didn't mention anything at all about ammout of work Dusty, my point was that the public won't see a differance in service when it comes to busy times but drivers will see a differance on their meters because of the busy times will be lessened.

Also P/H offices cannot meet the demands placed upon them at present so giving people like Sussex Man the right to pick up flaggers on his way to a pre-booked job will only add to the delay in service to the passenger who had the foresight to pre-book.

B. Lucky in 04

A closed market it may be but can you offer a viable alternative which will ensure that the facility to pre-book a car to be at a certain place at a certain time will be maintained.

Your generalised asumptions of plateholders are a joke Dusty, as most plates in the UK are in the hands of the vehicles driver.

And you recon the T&G are guilty of spin.

B. Lucky in 04

I haven't read this document but knowing the Taxi arm of the T&G as I do It is probably no different from any of the other documents they have put out over the years, regarding the regulation of the Taxi industry.

The T&G have some very nice people in the Taxi section of the Union and I'm not about to criticise them as individuals. What I will criticise is the fact that most Branches of the Taxi arm of the T&G throughout the country are infiltrated by those who have a vested interest in maintaining Hackney carriage numbers. This is not a guess it is a fact. Even though I class the T&G members that I know personally as nice people, it still doesn't stop me from disagreeing with their politics from time to time.

Having read some of the posts in this thread it would appear that some people believe there is an imbalance in this report. Having read other T&G reports appertaining to the Taxi trade this does not surprise me in the least.

I'm not going to harp on about the membership structure of the T&G because their membership outside of London represents less than 4 percent of the licensed Taxi and Private hire trade. They won't like me saying that but it happens to be a fact.

What I’m going to do is post part of a 1992 response from region 6 of the T&G union in their submission to stop further Hackney Carriage licences being issued, by Manchester city council. You can make your own minds up as to the bias and inaccurate statements contained therein.

The background to this report is as follows. Manchester city council were contemplating issuing more hackney carriage licences to compliment the 100 licences they had previously issued just after the 1985 Transport act coming into force. Prior to the act coming into force Manchester had 450 licensed Cabs, a further 100 licences were issued via the back door in 1987. I say the back door because there was no public notice or announcement that such licences were going to be issued. This meant that the democratic process of giving everyone a fair chance of applying for a licence was negated by the actions of the then Labour council.

Because of the 1985 transport act Manchester city council received over 400 applications for Hackney Licenses. The vast majority of these applicants were from people associated closely with the trade.
They new the system and they probably new that the council would not give the general public a chance to apply for a licence because advertising would only create more problems.

When the city council did finally announce they were going to issue further licences, they backdated the closing date for applications to several months prior to this announcement that new licenses were being issued. This meant that anyone who hadn’t already applied for a licence could no longer apply.

The Council interviewed just 140 of the 400 plus applicants, to which the 100 new licenses were given. The chair of the licensing committee at the time was one Keith Bradley, now a Member of Parliament. I suspect this was his last undemocratic act before he was elevated to that other undemocratic place we call parliament.

Another contentious point in the way this issue process was conducted was the fact that some of the new licences went to people who didn’t even hold a Manchester hackney carriage drivers licence or any other authorities Hackney licence for that matter. In fact, two brothers who got licences did so because they were fortunate enough to be given a nod and a wink from one of Manchester’s most prominent names in the Taxi industry. There are no prizes for guessing where these two licenses ended up.

The whole issue process was a sham from start to finish. There was collusion from both the council and the trade body. In fact, I think I’m right in saying that one licence went to an existing local councillor.

To get to the point at hand I’ll bypass the finer details of how the proposals to issue new licenses in 1992 came about and proceed to the report the T&G put forward in trying to get the issue of these new licenses stopped.

The T&G put forward the following case.

Anti poverty implications.

The many letters from the trade and consultations with the trade appended to this document make clear that POVERTY, HARDSHIP, BANKRUPTCY and REPOSSESSION of homes is likely in the event of an increase in Hackney Carriage numbers. It is not enough to say that an increase would be to the detriment of the earnings of existing members. (Sound familiar)?

The report goes on to mention the usual tirade of injustices that is about to befall the Taxi trade should the council go ahead and issue more licences. The report also supplied various figures to support its claim of hardship for its members, but as usual, those figures were grossly inaccurate and were meant to deceive. For instance, the T&G said in the report that Greater Manchester boroughs at the time had a ratio of one cab to 811 people. They failed to mention that these figures did not include 25 thousand full time students. They also failed to mention that Greater Manchester as a whole had a population of some 2.3 million. Of which most converged on the city centre at weekends and at times of major attractions. They also failed to mention that at any given time there was over a hundred cabs parked at Manchester Airport plying for hire.

To show you how ludicrous this report was I’ll bring you up to date with what the reality is today.

In 1992 Manchester had 550 Cabs, the plates were worth 15 grand, today Manchester has nearly 900 cabs and before the OFT report came out the plates were worth 45 grand. I should know because I have one. The waffle from the T&G about Bankruptcies, hardship, poverty and repossession never came about and cab drivers today in Manchester are probably better off than they were back in 1992 even though we have 300 extra cabs.

Every report I’ve ever read from a vested interest has always been unbalanced and disproportionate in its views. Even though I understand the pitfalls that deregulation may bring about it still doesn’t alter the fact that my first priority is natural justice for all, it is this belief that keeps me from adding my voice to the many who are against deregulation.

To me, fairness, democratic values and the equal right to compete on a level playing field has always been my overriding goal in life. For those in regulated areas who fear the competition that deregulation will undoubtedly bring, I say this. The world is a big place if you can’t compete find an industry where you can.

Best wishes

John Davies
Manchester.

More excellent stuff, particularly as regards some of the murky goings on regarding plate issues and the like.

I suspect the OFT had a lot of such stuff forwarded to them as part of its study, but it's a pity that the report so studiously avoided such issues - the OFT's concept of 'fair' is obviously a rather limited one.

Dusty

Or perhaps Dusty they will dig it, or perhaps they have already forwarded it to the DfT and the Minister.

I think if all of us in the trade actually sent the Minister details of the dodgy goings on, then we would all be in the [edited by admin].

But alas, most of us take the T&G view about sweeping it under the carpet.

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IDFIMH

What are you on about?

If it's garbage then say why, you can't just say it is and get away with it.

No wonder your posts are made as a guest.

Dusty