Taxi Driver Online

Well for one i hope they Win, it will help me.

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C. Oakes


The Hackney Association Ltd
bbha@btinternet.com

Who to win and how will it help you?

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IDFIMH

@ Rev Jim


Don't waste too much time on a couple of these ppl, they are PHD's that want a free way into what they really want to do, time and again you will explain to the likes of Sussex how too many cabs is bad and quality of car falls because owners aren't earning enough to buy newer cars of maintain the one they have already, in two days of posting he's become a wart on my willy with his outlook on things, if he has his way the cab trade will end up like something from the Baltic's with cars on the age limit having done 300k miles and doing drum kit renditions, he doesn't understand any of it because he's blinded by his desire to have a free one, almost like a benefit cabby in a way, he'll end up telling his council it isn't fair that ppl walk to work in the end and bring in manditory hirings for the public just so everything suits his little world, if he was a London/Manchester/Birmingham/Glasgow cabby I might take him seriously, but he's a one horse town sort and doesn't see the impications to other's of his wishes.

What's that

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

Private Hire Drivers.

So what you're suggesting is that the only people who want de-reg are PH drivers that can't get plates without forking out a shed load of money for one. Albeit the plate was originally free and doesn't actually belong to the person selling it.

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

Yeah, that's the basics of it, I know nobody on my fleet who wants dereg, and it was only ever free to the 1st person it was issued to, if you want a market stall you have to buy someone out, why is it such an issue when it comes to a cab plate?

You can get a PH plate from any council at any time there are no restrictions on them

Exactly, they just don't like it because they can't have a HC one without spending first, what they fail to see is that if they can have one everyone can have one and then the job becomes unviable.

I've seen these ppl over the years with their great ideas, only to F everything up and then move on elsewhere, I even had a firm of drivers vote and print up 30% discount flyers without asking the boss if it was ok, an operator who single handedly drove 30 cars off a firm within weeks due to her shift system, only to say she wouldn't do the shifts if she was still a driver, one for you one for me I think that comes under, neddless to say that firm doesn't exist anymore and it was the largest and best firm to work for back then before she meddled because she was a s**t and bent op.

Probably cos the market stall was never a FREE issue in the 1st place. I actually think de-reg is a bad thing I also think that selling a plate is criminal but then that is only my opinion.

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

I have to admit as far as the selling part goes it isn't an ideal situation, I bought mine because even though I moan about getting out I am what's known as a born cabby who as my mate says will die in that car, so from my point of view I bought one as a life job rather than to bag a few quid selling later, and even though ppl think they've done well if they say profit 20k from it, you'll have given it back in payin money within 2 years, only works out if you get out and stay out, my whole objection to dereg is that it doesn't work I've seen it done 20 years ago and the fleet virtually doubled until the association lobbied it and it was removed, even so there is 80 more mouths to feed and less work now and I really don't need another 100 to compete with, it's bad enough with pirate hire sweeping the flaggers up already.

Pirate hire as you call it has never been regulated and they seem to do just fine, apparently. So if LO's are looking at them as examples of free enterprise they have a pretty good model, don't you think.

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

Not at all, all might look fine on the car number front, but factor in how many ppl do the job for a few mths and work it out it's not paying and quit and it all looks a lot different, last time we had times like these I was PH and I was struggling to take 15 quid over a 9 hour shift, I quit for a while in the end, the PH companies work a similar system to the double glazing ones, they promise a good living, pay for badges etc and let some mug drive for a month giving them two fed up the backside weeks to get them started and then two more swim with the fish weeks before the driver quits due to lack of earnings.

I call it pirate hire because I can't resist asking if they are free when they loiter outside clubs and stations, the answer is usually yes mate, the face is a picture when I tell them I'm a HCD, including one who bounded up spouting about being office manager of a firm thinking I would brick it because of who owns it, soon ****ed off once he knew it was a mate of mine and his [edited by admin] dropped out, a few of the lads resort to going with them and then telling them at the end of the trip who they are and don't pay, myself I don't want to go to that extreme just yet, but I also feel it's gone beyond pinching an opportunity to outright blatant flouting.

I beg to differ. PH has always had a quick turnover of drivers. It's the nature of the beast. A lot of people will do this job as a stop gap. It's not the quantity of vehicles you have it's how easy it is to become a driver in the first place that makes it such a target for everybody who wants to earn a little extra.

If councils made the knowledge test an effort to pass (if indeed they have one at all), introduced strict quality control on vehicles and not just age limits, paid a little more attention to detail regarding CRBs, perhaps introduced some kind of reasonable dress code, did some test purchasing to weed out idiots and actually employed some enforcement officers to ensure that all regulations are adhered to things may be a little better. It may also help if drivers stopped blagging about how much they actually earn it may reduce the temption of others thinking they would be onto a good thing taxi driving.

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

Maybe not where you are bud, but here we have drivers who can't speak English and rely on the Tom Tom, my mates missus even had one the other week, she told him where she wanted, which was a hospital, and he simply pulled the Tom Tom off the window and wanted her to put the postcode in.


It's a simple sum, if you have 10 jelly beans and 5 ppl in the room they get two each, next week there's 10 jelly beans and 20 ppl in the room, PH in my town only manages to make it's payin by theiving my work, if it was all done honest they'd all be quitting, proved it the other week the taxi marshalls monitored the drop off zone where they pretend to wait for a booking and guess what, no PH vehicle in sight until the marshalls left to do something else.


edit, lol at the blagging wages, you get that as well, yeah I took 900 quid last night, oh how so, well this bloke wanted to go to the Isle of Man so I quoted him 500 plus the ferry and I had a Penzance when I got back and the last 100 was this bloke who liked my aftershave so much he tipped me 97.20p