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I’d hail end of black cab and private hire divide
BIRMINGHAM’S minicab drivers are going bananas – and not just because the city council wants to paint their cars bright yellow.
They’re still hopping mad about last week’s fiasco at Villa Park, when hundreds were locked out of a consultation about the future of private hire in the city.
Officials at the Council House, who have since apologised for the cock-up, will have felt the anger.
Drivers of my acquaintance are now muttering darkly about the threat of strike action if the local authority imposes new terms and conditions without consent. If they withdraw their labour any time in the next month, it would cripple hard-pressed pubs and clubs in the run-up to Christmas.
For all that, the council’s demands don’t seem unreasonable. The licensing department wants all cars over eight years old to be driven out of the trade, and are hoping to impose a regime of MoT testing every six months, instead of once a year.
No doubt this would push up fares – but it would also rid the roads of a few rustbuckets as well as improving the quality of the service.
Forcing cabs to accept a uniform colour would also make enforcement easier.
No longer would rogue drivers be able to prowl the streets hoping to take advantage of innocent late night stragglers, by tempting them into unlicensed vehicles.
Once these improvements were introduced, I would go even further and scrap the traditional demarcation lines between the private-hire trade and their rivals in black hackney cabs.
As a result, all licensed drivers would be eligible to ply for hire. It would make the streets safer, allowing vulnerable women to hail any taxi, instead of having to wait late at night for the right kind of car.
The distinction between hackney carriages and private hire is a ludicrous throwback to the days of the top hat and the pennyfarthing. It certainly has no place in a modern city.
For years, the separation was justified on the grounds that one group of drivers had superior “knowledge” of the best routes in the city.
With the arrival of sat nav, they are all equal now.
I would also put a meter in every cab. No more awkward conversations based around the question, “How much do you usually pay?”
No doubt drivers on both sides of the private hire/hackney carriage divide will howl in outrage, because no one likes change – but I’ve no doubt that customers would feel the benefit.
We would have a safer, more reliable fleet of cars for hire and fewer quibbles about price.
Oh, and as for the colour, there’s nothing wrong with cabs being yellow, either.
If it’s good enough for New York, it’s good enough for me.
Is this the start of the end
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