John Davies wrote:
Sussex wrote:
If you will kop bundles of work from the site, then £75 seems to me a bargain.

I suppose we have to live with the fact that private parking facilities at some establishments are being used as a tool in which to generate revenue from the Taxi and private hire industry. The difference between the Railways and Airports is that they can set their own bye laws which are legally enforceable, Supermarkets and places of entertainment do not have that luxury. They can ask you to leave if you are not on legitimate business but I suppose you could always offer the excuse that you are picking up a pre-booked fare.
In order to eject you they would have to get the police, or perhaps in the extreme clamp your vehicle. Clamping a public hire vehicle in the execution of his duty would be a good court case would it not lol
I have always been against permits of any kind but in some instances, in order for Taxis and mainly Private hire companies to generate work for their drivers they have had to agree terms with a particular outlet.
The terms of such contracts may not even involve money changing hands. The assurance of a freephone for its customers and a priority service is sometimes good enough to seal a contract.
Reply.
But now we have middlemen selling free-phone contracts, acting as agents between supermarkets etc and taxi companies another snout in the trough, they are in it for the money not the love of taxis.
All these things have to be paid for and who is at the end of this line, the customer, has anyone asked them how they feel about higher fares, surcharges etc to cover these costs. Do they prefer a freephone and then a booking fee charged by the taxi or a taxi rank and no booking fees. More advertising, more freephones, more permit fees; who benefits, not the customer he is paying for it, not the taxi driver he's working harder for less.