toots wrote:
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"operate" means in the course of business to make provision for the invitation or acceptance of bookings for a private hire vehicle;
There is obviously some confusion and disagreement as to what exactly was meant when the above was enacted. You have to think and wonder what was intended at the time of the act.
I suspect the intention was quite simply that someone taking PH bookings had to be regulated in some way, and that's done via the operator licensing requirement.
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It certainly wasn't intended that an internet site that placed a booking with a company would be considered a provider. When restaurants and hotels make a booking for customers or guests they could not surely be considered a provider. Nor could they be held responsible if anything went wrong on the journey
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But what if the hotel made a booking with a driver directly rather than an operator? In that case I don't see why the hotel shouldn't come within the definition of operator (making provision etc), and that would be consistent with the intention of the act.
Of course, in the normal course of events the hotel will make a booking with an operator (as per what I said yesterday, by 'company' I assume you mean licensed operator) and to that extent wouldn't need licensing, because they're dealing with a licensed operator rather than directly with a PH vehicle/driver, which is what the definition above addresses - it doesn't address the situation where a hotel/pub/restaurant deals with a licenced operator.
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Again do these companies actually supply anything?
Do you mean an, er, enabler this time, Toots?
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It could well be argued that they invite people to to make bookings, but, again those bookings will go through an operator who is indeed licensed to accept the same and provide the required vehicle. Would this be enough for a court of law to say the 'enabler' was breaking the law. It could be argued that they are not inviting anybody they are merely providing a place to connect with the provider. It's a tangled web and imo if you offer this type of service you should have to have some kind of license
Well to repeat what I said last night, if they're dealing with an operator then would they also meet the defintion of operator too?:
"operate" means in the course of business to make provision for the invitation or acceptance of bookings for a private hire vehicle
Whereas what a hotel in the normal course of events is doing is:
"operate" means in the course of business to make provision for the invitation or acceptance of bookings for a licensed operator
But that's not what it says, so a hotel etc doesn't meet the definition. Likewise if an one of these websites deals with a licenced operator. But if it deals directly with a PH driver who doesn't have an operator's licence then one of them - depending on the precise circumstances - would have to be an operator, and thus if they don't have a licence would be acting illegally.
Which also satisfies the intention of the legislation - there only needs to be one licenced operator in the booking chain, not two.
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