Taxi Driver Online

skippy..... we have 271 hackney licences in Sefton..... and everyone of them can be changed to either a WAV or saloon vehicle at any time.....

_________________
Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

Good for you other dont have that privilege

Call for disabled-friendly taxis


ONLY six registered taxis in North Somerset have proper access for wheelchair users.

The Weston & Somerset Mercury was contacted by reader Andrew Hillhouse, who is a regular visitor to Weston.

The Ayr resident says on a recent trip to the resort he found it difficult getting transport when taking his friend, who uses a wheelchair, out to dinner.

When the paper contacted North Somerset Council, a spokesman confirmed only six taxis across the district are equipped to carry people while seated in their wheelchairs.

Mr Hillhouse said: "The taxi company we eventually used promised a suitable vehicle, but when it turned up it was just an ordinary five-door saloon car.

"This meant dismantling the wheelchair and my friend having to transfer with difficulty into the vehicle on a cold night.

"Wake up Weston. Do not forget that severely disabled wheelchair users still need to go out shopping or to visit friends and relatives.

"In this day and age at least 50 per cent of taxis should be disabled-friendly.

_________________
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

maybe the Disabilty charity should stick a few taxi type vehicles on the road themselves....theres a few charity groups up here does it and it fechs up any chance for the rest of us making a fair go of a much more expensive WAV because they do so...the trouble is with the Charity types is they Disappear after 5pm and leave the more nocturnal amongst the disabled to rely on non WAV owning types....maybe if we had their custom for more of the day a WAV just might be more of a Viable option to some...

Just so long as someone else pays?

CC

_________________
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

It was PH then?

CC

_________________
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Does Six WAV taxis only equal one WAV taxi in that town??

When the taxi drivers up there finally do their VRQ and NVQ they will know how to get a wheelchair into a vehicle safely without hurting themselves or their passenger, but heaven only knows when that will be and as I said before why don't the charity arrange some training for the drivers

_________________
Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

i was just about to say that

and i keep seeing that "disabled" = "wheelchair" all the time, but not all disabled use wheel chairs, and some that do choose chairs (or need chairs) that will never fit in a "WAV" that would get a plate....

as for night owl wheelchair users, most have more sense (or needs) than to be out at 2am

_________________
Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

Shame on you. We have quite a few regulars that are in wheelchairs that go home after 2am at weekends but they get into saloon vehicles as that is what they prefer. They have those nifty little chairs that fold up easy and you put it in the boot.

_________________
Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

so they have made decisions and arrangements to ease and ensure what they do and how they do it

this is called "life" (also "compromise")

i would always support and praise folk who do this (without wishing to sound patronising)

my mate of 20 years was in a wheelchair, he had his own cars (first one was what he called a *******mobile HIS words) with a putputput engine, he had a spinal injury down a coalmine at age 18 and never walked again.

"Disabled" also applies to many different disabilities, if they all required the purchasing of a unique vehicle it would be the end of the taxi trade!

_________________
Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

I think another issue is the ever growing ranks of Pseudo disabled...they give the genuine disabled bad press, you've all seen them, running about in brand new mobility cars and they park in disabled bays..get out...run to the shop..run back fully laden with shopping and theres Bugger all wrong with them other than they carry a stick of convenience as a badge of disability, usually its a mild form of depression and a doctor that just wants a quite life so he go's along with their ultimate goal of a disabilty vehicle and a Disabilty pension for life...Id bet nigh on 50% of accepted claims for disability are dubious to say the very least. Having an offspring who has a genuine diabilty (not a wheelchair user) it thoroughly p*sses me off to see these shirkers get everything where as the genuine disabled tend to be overlooked...

Because these wasters are registered as disabled it also has the knock on effect of artificially raising the overall numbers....that means that when the government bodies work out the percentage/ratio of Disabled to able bodied the figure they come up with is needlessly well over the actual mark, this leads to extra disabilty parking bays, Extra Wavs, Extra everything infact...but mostly Extra Billions spent needlessly on Disabilty Cars and Allowances...

Speaking as someone who has run the ONLY disabled access taxi in my town for over 10 years. The demand for them is not great in more rural areas usually calls for more disabled cabs happen about every 18 months locally usually when someone has tried to get one in the middle of school run time or late at night on a quiet midweek night when I'm not working.

Able bodied people hate them and its hard convincing councillors of that fro instance on tuesday i sat front rank for over an hour with 18 fares in a row going to the second rank car in the end I gave up and went home out of frustration.

Every other taxi driver in town is aware of this and for that reason and the fact that saloon cars are cheaper to buy and run NO ONE ELSE ever will buy a wav.

The problem is always getting the message across to do gooder councillors !

Perhaps the government should actually do a survey to see how many disabled people are wheelchair users and how many of those wheelchair user have chairs that cannot be folded into a boot and then decide how many WAV's there should be on the road. With regard to drivers that are prepared to have the extra expenditure of a WAV there should be some kind of subsidy available.

When you think that Alcholics and drug users can claim DLA they are obviously under the banner of diasabled when clearly they are not.

_________________
Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

yup ...and we shall all live happily together in never never land...