Taxi Driver Online

Hi Everyone,

Hope you are all well.

Not posted recently but was hoping someone might be able to help me with a question...

Bit of background....

TaxiRoute.co.uk is a taxi fare calculator. At the moment it only exists as a web application. But, I am looking at having 2 versions of it written as "mobile apps"

The first app would be for the customer to use...

The second app would be for the taxi driver to use...

My question is about the taxi driver app.

If I were to be sending enquiries directly to taxi drivers phones would I have to meet any legal requirements? Would I have to have a taxi operators license for example?

Any thoughts would be very much appreciated.

Thanks

Trev

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www.taxiroute.co.uk

Short answer...NO..but!
I had a colleague[Joe] who had a similar problem. Sevenish Years ago Joe had a PH car then decided to go it alone. Joe needed an operators license. He obtained one and began his operation.
Six years later, and a driving ban for six months he now had a problem.
The recession had arrived at the same time so he thought about selling the business as a going concern. However he had also given up his office, operators license & badge and plate at the same time to save cash.
His dilemma was that he needed to carry on collecting work and answering the telephones in order to sell his business as a going concern. The LA were on to him & required him to STOP taking work as he did not have the licenses to operate.
I instructed him to write back and explain that all of the work was given to a PH company who were licensed with the same LA & a number of HC drivers who were also licensed with the same LA & a number Licensed with other LA's.
The problem is that you cannot operate PH vehicles without an ops License, but all of the vehicles in question had there own and were fully legal.
However Joe did not have any vehicles so he did not need to have one.
What he did do though was take a % cut of certain account jobs. He was for a while a Booking agent.
That I suppose, is what you are, you pass work onto drivers who then do the work and charge either the customer or the driver [or both!].
A word of warning though, I would make sure that you had HC drivers or PH companies to do your work and not PH drivers direct as they would be invalidating their insurance & you may be held responsible.

thanks for the response..

thats the crux of the question really.

if i am feeding fares to people i dont want to brake any rules and i certainly dont want to put anyone in a comprimising position.

can you explain a little more about how you think it would break the ph drivers insurance?

thanks

trev

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www.taxiroute.co.uk

Because you don't have a PH operator's licence and neither do most of them? Wouldn't that make the hire illegal and invalidate their insurance?

BTW the law in Scotland is different and you would require a booking office licence if you were taking bookings for 4 or more licenced vehicles (taxi or ph)

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http://wingsoverscotland.com/ http://www.newsnetscotland.com/

thanks.

looks like i do need somekind of license to be able to give work to taxi drivers.

and rightly so. make sense really.

i will ask my local LA as a first step to see what they think

trev

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www.taxiroute.co.uk

No you don’t, because even if you got your PH ops license and gave a PH driver a job in another part of the country[different LA] and the PH driver was working for a company on their radio you would be breaking the law. The only way would be to give the work to the company he/she worked for.
I guess you want to aim this product at owner drivers with there own ops license or HC drivers. HC drivers have by law the ability to accept bookings from anyone by definition.
The only other way that you could legally give PH drivers a job direct would be to obtain an ops License for every LA in the UK
Then your product would be 100% effective!
The most prudent thing to do would be to get copies of HC drivers credentials before they do any work for you.
As for PH drivers, You would do well to tread very carefully. There will be a few independent PH drivers out there but you need to make sure they have their ops license as well.

PH insurance: If a PH driver [with ops license] does a job he/she is required that it must be a telephone booking/email/txt/fax. The job must be recorded.
If a PH driver [without ops license]who works for a PH company, picks up a similar job from a third party[YOU], that driver would technically be invalidating his insurance conditions. If he had an accident while doing a job for you, the drivers feet would not touch the ground again. The customers legal team would want to talk to you because they would of been informed that the drivers insurance had been invalidated. They would be wanting a large amount of compensation from YOU!

Im not sure I follow your logic on the PH insurance point.

As you say, the driver is the one invalidating their insurance so how would i be liable for that?

On the other point though, it doesn't sound like i need any licenses to give enquiries to drivers?

Trev

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www.taxiroute.co.uk

Joe Bloggs books a taxi with you he lives in Wrexham and wants to go to Manchester airport. I presume he has somehow contacted you for a price I also presume you then direct him to a driver [Gareth the PH driver without ops license] who has agreed a price and has then booked Mr Bloggs in.
Gareth picks up Mr Bloggs but on the Motorway has a bad accident.
The police turn up and want to see Gareth’s insurance & who he works for.
Gareth could lie and say his PH company gave him it to him, but the Police do check the PH company records.
The Police find out Gareth did not get the job off his PH company thereby invalidating his insurance.
You problem is that Mr Bloggs has 2 broken legs and whiplash together with 4 months loss of earnings and who do you think he will turn to collect. The person who he booked the job with, Gareth has become bankrupt. He has lost his 15k car, that he hasn't yet paid for. The other vehicle/s are also right-offs and they will have to claim off the motor insurance bureaux, who will pursue Gareth to try to claim their money back.
Mr Bloggs lawyers find out you took the booking and unlawfully [without doing any checks on your sub-contractors]gave the work to an illegal driver. You would therefore be next inline for prosecution &/or sued for 100k plus. I just hope there are no fatalities because that’s a seven figure number.
I urge you to consider HC drivers only because ALL of them have there own OPERATORS LICENSE You just need to get copies of their credentials.
I hope I have clarified the point for you!

Hi,

Thanks for you patience but I still don't get how I would be liable.

What's the difference between the service I am offering and Yellow Pages for example?

Are you saying that Yellow Pages would be liable if someone was hurt in a taxi that was found using their advert?

I don't see how my situation is different.

Im not intending to take any bookings. My service connects customers to taxi companies. Bookings are made between those parties as usual.

Trev

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www.taxiroute.co.uk

I think the difference is that you could be viewed as making provision for the bookings for PH vehicles without a license.

Will not apply to hackneys.

Making provision isn't the same as advertising.

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IDFIMH

there must be dozens of sites already at this with no ops licence, then again, why not? mines only £80 a year...........

£80 X 300+ = £24,000+

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Caledonian Cabbie

i wish.

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www.taxiroute.co.uk