What About The Taxi-cab Drivers?
21st September 2008
By John 'The Cabbie' Kennedy
All London Taxi-cab drivers understand the need to ensure that we and the travelling public must have full confidence in the vehicle we drive. The decision to revoke licence plates on all 56 reg TX4 taxi-cabs I'm sure was not taken lightly, our safety record here in London is second to no other part of the transport network, we should be rightly proud of that and always ensure that this remains the case.
My concern at this moment in time is with the taxi-cab drivers who have lost the ability to work through no fault of their own.
I believe the following remedial action needs to take place now:
1. Emergency funding should be made available to each of these taxi-cab drivers if required.
2. Every effort should be made to find, source and if need be plate unused TX2's, 1's or even fairways. A 24 hour emergency operation may be required here or permission for temporary plates to be issued to get these taxi-cabs and drivers back to work.
3. Finance payments should be suspended on all affected taxi-cabs, I urge all finance companies to assist with drivers in a compassionate and sympathetic manner.
The events of the last week have dented the confidence of the London taxi trade so we must all work even harder to protect the reputation of the world's best taxi service. When a solution is found to this problem we must demand a forensic examination of the failings within the present regulatory framework that allowed eight taxi-cabs in London to go up in flames before decisive action was taken to protect the driver, passenger and reputation of our industry.
We the taxi-cab driver need a Public Carriage Office ( PCO.) that is 110% committed to the taxi trade and not distracted by private hire/mini-cab issues, therefore I call upon the Mayor of London Boris Johnson and the whole board of Transport for London to split the PCO in two.
Source; The London Daily News
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