Taxi Driver Online

Cost someone about £50,000 to find out.

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IDFIMH

It is a person that the ops license is registered to.

But many, if not most, councils also want the licensing bases to have planning permission for such bases.

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IDFIMH

In your opinion.

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IDFIMH

In the East Staffordshire case, Mr Rendell was wholly licensed by Derbyshire Dales. His partner Mrs McCartin lived 50 yards away from him, but on the other side of a bridge which marked the boundary between East Staffordshire and Derbyshire Dales. The two partners, McCartin and Rendell, were in the habit in the daily course of their business of transferring their telephone line between each other when they were out on a job. The courts held that transferring the line from Derbyshire Dales to East Staffordshire without having an East Staffordshire operator licence, and consequently vehicles and drivers also licensed by East Staffordshire, was unlawful.

In the case of Mr Powers, all his vehicles and his office were licensed in Stratford-upon-Avon, but because this was not a 24-hour operation Mr Powers diverted his telephone number to his house in Bromsgrove, and was therefore making a provision in Bromsgrove, for which he required an operator licence. This worked fine, as long as Mr Powers had some vehicles licensed by Bromsgrove. However, once he had got rid of those licences and concentrated on Stratford alone, the council at Bromsgrove refused to renew his operator licence because under such licence he could only use Bromsgrove licensed vehicles and drivers, and has he had none of those it was inappropriate to give him a licence. His appeal against that decision failed.

In Murtagh -v- Bromsgrove Pat Murtagh, who, had a business on the border of Bromsgrove and Birmingham. She was wholly licensed in Bromsgrove, but had nine freephones across the border in Birmingham. Birmingham City Council maintained and insisted that those freephones had to be served by Birmingham licensed drivers and vehicles. Acting under some pressure, Mrs Murtagh acceded to Birmingham's request to obtain an operator licence from Birmingham, and licensed half her vehicles and drivers with Birmingham.

Birmingham and Bromsgrove then embarked on a squabble as to who had the right of it, with Mrs Murtagh in effect being treated as pig in the middle. After some ten years Bromsgrove successfully prosecuted Mrs Murtagh, who then promptly moved her entire operation into Birmingham.

That didn't involve mobiles.

What I think a court would now say is that the mobile was/is an extension of the office, and the booking was/is lawful as long as the driver and vehicle are licensed in the same area as where the call was diverted from.

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IDFIMH

I refer to the answer I previously gave.

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IDFIMH

In your opinion.

My favourite Answer.....so far..

I sort of think that has been addressed by the improvements in telecommunications as well.

There are at least two types of free-phones. One which goes through the telephone exchange and one that is simply an extension of the office. I think for the one that goes through the telephone exchange does mirror the case above in quotes, but I think the office extension version doesn't and is used in a few areas not far from me.

Very confusing and I don't like it, but I think it is legal.

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IDFIMH

I quote Lord Justice Kennedy in the Murtagh case, where in his summing up, not only did he comment on the abysmally poor legislation which we have to operate under, but also suggested that Parliament should take steps to correct these problems.
In the judgement he said:-
The problem is to some extent the result of improved technology since the statute was passed, but the law needs to reflect the current state of technology and not be 23 years behind it."

Well said 'Mi Lord.

He was probably sipped at the time, because that is usually the only time judges make sense.

PS It is alleged that Patricia Murtagh is now one of the big noises with the Btec/NVQ qualification in Transporting Passengers by Taxi and Private Hire with a company called Go Skills.

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Kind regards,

Brummie Cabbie.

Type a message, post your news,
Disagree with other members' views;
But please, do have some decorum,
When debating on the TDO Forum.

I am concerned about the insurance position. If it is the case that bookings are being made unlawfully - then that may well reflect on the insurance cover; and in this day of ambulance-chasing lawyers, this cannot be a situation which in my opinion can be left to chance