Taxi Driver Online

Dusty,
I was not being careful with my words, I was restating that the plate can be removed at any any time,it remains the property of the council.
The gambling anology is not apt, you would only be going to the gamblers anonymous if you kept "buying" plates that you were constantly losing. Even I only did it the once.
As for the garages in Manchester paying £50K, that is not the scenario.
The multi owners seem to fading from the scene, the lads that were paying out the big money were Asian drivers who were way down the list due to length of service. I would add though that they are not fools though and must have thought that they could recoup the outlay.
I get the feeling that some of the regulars seem to think that owners are some sort of Dickensian Workhouse managers. That I do not think is the case up here, the majority of cabs are driven by the owners during the day with the trackers doing the night shift. Usually I find that the general consensus is that the "system" works well and is of mutual benefit to both parties.
Ged

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taxi driver @manchester airport

Quote Dusty:

I'm not sure what you mean by 'personal' Mr Scanner, you expressed an opinion (which can only be personal) and I expressed an opinion in return - how do you construe this as being personal?

Because your comment........
" So you want more drivers, but only if they'll driver your car.
That just about sums things up!! ....was irrelevant to anything I wrote or to how I think.

OK, I won't disagree with your assertion that your driver is better off than you, but if this is due to your personal benevolence then that's your business, but it seems a bit rich to complain about a lack of drivers when you seem to be taking a charitable approach to hiring them.

Excuse me? Who was complaining??????????. I made an observation. And this is regard to ph drivers as well because they take the same test.

But ignoring your own personal arrangement, I've heard this argument many time, and it's usually bogus - it usually comes from people who try to tell journeymen that they would be worse off doing what the owner chooses to do............."

Not from me matey!.

.........which begs the question, why don't they dump their vehicle and drive for someone else? But the answer is usually obvious!

I look at it as job security. I bought my own taxi because the three owners that I worked for twenty years ago mucked me around.

In any case, drivers doing permanent nights, every Friday and Saturday and long hours can conceviably take several time what the owner does during his 'office hours' 8-5, Monday to Friday (say), so it would hardly be amazing if the driver made more than the owner.

Im an owner and I work a lot more hours than any of my drivers have done. Why do you think that an owner just does 8 to 5 which in any case is 9 hours. By the way...what do you call long hours? Isnt 9 hours a day of driving enough for anyone.

The trouble is dusty that it appears that you view owners as all the same... you tar us all with the same brush. Therefor any comments that I make will be replied to on that level.

Lastly.. you would not believe how much I have gone out of my way to help a driver who has been with us for a long time who has been told that he can have a new issue plate (following a recent survey)

oh yes thats dusty all right stir the pot and make assumptions
dun it wi me guesses and assumes allways wrongly.

Pardon?

Dusty

a sed yer make assumptions and dont get it right you do it all the time

Assumptions about what?

And if I do it all the time could you give me a few examples?

And anyway, who are you to say so, whoever you are?

Dusty

I'm not sure what planet I work on, but I know the world I inhabit, the real one.

I would give two examples of areas I know, Eastbourne and Brighton. Both very similar deals.

A jockey can either rent a shift, be it days or nights for about £200-250 a week, that to me is one than one hundred, hence the plural.

Other jockeys split the meter, be it 50/50 or there abouts. So if a night jockey takes say £600, then the owner get £300.

Even the rate to jockey a PH, can give the owner of that car anything between £100 and £200.

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IDFIMH

Very impressive debating skills.

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IDFIMH

I work in one of those areas Mr Sussexman mentioned, and he not far off.
Although I own my plate s[eaking to the journeymen they either pay 175-250 depending on who many days. Some 5 some 6 some 7 days a week rental.

A few it used to be most are on 50/50. Now I no how much i take and getting 50 percent of that would be quite a nice bonus and easily pay for my car. But not my plate even tho i got it for nowt in 1995.
I dont have a joourneyman but at times the money would be nice.

Yes and on that flimsy evidence you make assumptions about all!

yourself and the dustbin, both entirely live life on evidence from the province of the bathchairs

So when you get facts that you disagree with, then it's flimsy?

Says it all.

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IDFIMH

So, a jockey CAN give an owner between £100 and £300 a week?

Well thats hardly "earning" the owner that much is it.

Insurance (typically) £50 a week.
Circuit rent (typically) £85 a week.
Hire Purchase (typically) £100 a week.
Maintenance (typically) £30 a week.

Then, of course, there is fuel to consider.....

And of course (he adds with not a little irony) there is the "depreciation" and possibly finance costs of the Hackney Plate to consider, the so-called "investment" in the plate (£50,000 for Manchester!?!) Jeez.... !

I'm afraid I have to go with Scanner on this one. Not all owners are bad just because they employ jockeys, and, I know a good few jockeys who dont want to own their vehicles.

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There is Significant Unmet Demand for my Opinion.

twisting words again Sussex, what I am saying is that your experience is quoted on a far too narrow band, to give opinions on the whole you must study the whole not two little out posts by the coast.

Well from what I can gather from the other taxi sites, it seems that the two little outposts are not far from the norm.

Compared to some areas it may even be a conservative amount, but you could start by telling us the situation in your manor.

However one thing I have worked out all on my own, is that in the main, journeymen fees are a lot less in open areas, than in closed areas.

I wonder why?

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IDFIMH

But why should it be down to the journeyman to subsidies all this?

Many get by without journeymen, most of the hundred odd thousand PH vehicles in the country get by without them, and have much the same outgoings (bar WAV only areas) as the HC trade.

If a driver gives £10,000 a year to an owner, then that easily pays for the vehicle, insurance and maintenance costs. Most on fixed deals pay for their own fuel.

I'm starting to wonder exactly what some HC owners want from the trade in restricted areas. They have a nice little quota cartel, and a car paid for, insured and maintained by someone else.

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IDFIMH