Taxi Driver Online

It's good to see that the TGWU have reacted well to the ban on drivers using mobile phones in Mansfield.

Their spokesman in Mansfied, Glen Borill, was reported in Private Hire and Courier to have said: "We are supportive of these new conditions".

Dusty

What I can't understand about all this, is that the soppy sod was prosecuted under criminal law. Why then do the good (or maybe not) councilors of Mansfield deem they have to put criminal law into drivers terms of license?

Do they believe they are a higher authority?

Or is it just a case of lets have a pop at the HC/PH trade yet again, even though the criminal law already allows for it.

I don't think the criminal law does allow for it, at least in so far as enforcing it is concerned.

The police only take an interest in extreme cases at present, ie after a crash, for example, which brings 'horses' and 'stable doors' to mind.

But there's no specific offence until the Govt's new measures to be brought into force later this year(?), so Mansfield aren't really duplicting the criminal law, and if they are, it's cos police won't enforce it.

Dusty

i'm a member of the t&g and i think they have good back up if you are ever in the poo.

i think they get a bit carried away on the polictics side, but i will never leave them.

He's got a hearing on the 3rd of December Andy at Mansfield Magistrates court.

Nigel is that against his license suspension, or his conviction?

His Licence suspension Andy, he has not been convicted by the police at all just the Council acting like Nazis again. His suspension was supposed to have kicked in straight away but because he appealed against it he's still driving.

See I don't think they are really allowed to suspend his license.

They can revoke it, and say he can reapply in say 6 weeks or 6 months or whatever, but by suspending him I think they are in the wrong.

If he is deemed not to be fit and proper now, then what makes him fit and proper in say 6 months?

If the suspension of his license would have run out by now anyway, then the council have already deemed that he would suddenly be fit and proper now, and his suspension hasn't started.

Please keep us up to date on this, because although he was a pratt, how many of us are in position to cast the first stone?

Well it's a question of degree I suppose, none of us are saints, but doing a text message with a punter in the car is taking it a bit far methinks.

It's the Govts fault ultimately, they ignored the problem and (for example) it was reported a year or two ago that they thought mobile phones weren't a problem because the user could drop the phone in the event of something happening(!). (Presumably didn't read their own Highway Code!!).

Then came the TRL report(?) which said that using a mobile phone made the driver as dangerous as having drunk x pints of lager(?).

So they changed their mind and now it's to become illegal. But will the police enforece it - probably not, because it's now so ingrained that lots will throw a tantrum if given a ticket, so police will probably ignore it most of the time.

If the Govt had acted when mobiles were the provence of yuppies and drug dealers then they might have nipped it in the bud, but ten years later I don't think so!!!

Dusty

Looks like he's going to get off with it after all, the outgoing Labour Council gave him a slap on the wrist and told him not to do it again, the new independent Council looked at the case again and decided to slap him with a ban.

Sorry Nigel, I can't work that out.

The new council that gave him the ban etc, have they been voted out already?

Or do they realise they might well lose out in court?

No Andy the old Council which was Labour gave him a warning for using his mobile whilst driving, the new lot gave him a ban for the same thing. Double jeopardy or what. In a nut shell he's been tried twice for the same offence.

Well I suppose if nothing else, he and his colleagues wont do that again.

Hopefully.

of course he was a dick head for doing that and addmiiting it.
but i see drivers driving the wrong way up a one way street. going through red lights. speeding back to the ranks. and loads more thats on a par with what the lad from mansfield did.
the only difference is they dont get caught.

lee boy