A question of Rank
It isn’t very often I find myself in front of a keyboard with a rather meaty story and no idea whatsoever how to put it into words, even the title suggests I haven’t got the faintest clue what to do here. It’s a little like being starving, sitting down for Sunday lunch and finding you don’t have a knife and fork. I need pictures, preferably ones of the short haired blonde in the classic Fuzzbox hit ‘International Rescue’, I sincerely hope she isn’t a lesbian.
However, I digress, unfortunately taxitalk isn’t 2000AD comic, complete with our editorial doom twins acting as some latter-day Judge Dread, either way, I’m going to give what I see is an honest assessment and unfortunately the undertone is one that is a country wide phenomenon.
The current dispute in Carlisle is about the possible placement of a taxi rank for 3 cabs. Not normally a trade splitting issue? Ahh but! The placement of this rank is controversial because it’s beside a superstore that has a free-phone to a taxi / private hire company and it’ll be placed on a public road.
Therefore we have two camps, the wannaranks and dontwannaranks. You guessed it, the wannaranks don’t subscribe to the radio circuit, and the dontwannaranks do.
I would say feelings are running quite high; approximately 80 letters (all apparently without spelling mistakes) / signatures (all apparently without spelling mistakes) have been sent to the County Council objecting to the proposed rank, which by sheer coincidence is approximately the same number of subscribers to the radio circuit that has the free-phone.
The other side (the wannaranks) are approaching it is a rather strange way., it appears sitting back, doing absolutely nothing apart from being rather bemused by what’s happening, to be honest from a strictly impartial position, it is quite comical.
There’s a lot of euphemisms I could use, but what has been made clear are the true loyalties of some in the trade, it’s no real surprise, but that aside, never allow the taxi trade and the public to get in the way of the good old ”what about me!” mentality. All in all it has been a quite hysterical week, denials, accusations, we’ve had the lot, we’ve even heard the line, ‘the rank will be unsafe’, even though a good number of cabs already use the location to pick up at the free-phone facility!
As I suppose you may realise, when writing my articles I don’t in general care who I upset, to quote REM, ‘I am the greatest thing since bread came sliced’, sufficed to state this isn’t going to change now. True I’d prefer to play golf or play five a side. But, as ever, all have the right to reply, and we don’t even mind publishing the spelling and grammatical errors, and of course crayons are acceptable, presuming it’s constructive of course.
Naturally the magazine does take exception to gross illiterates, arlarses (that’s scouse btw), and no-marks so be prepared for disappointment.
The past saw saloon cars obstructed by condition from using a City Centre rank, a policy that was flawed from the outset, and deemed to be illegal (when ironically the deregulatory policy installed initially was the actual flaw). It’s perhaps ironic, but not typical, that a good number of those who were so vociferous about being allowed to use a certain rank, calling for freedom, are now so much in disagreement with others being permitted the same at another location.
Hypocrite is a word, but obviously it would go beyond the realms of what this magazine would be prepared to use in the context of this article, so we won’t.
‘The trade is split’ sounds like a decent headline, but the reality is, it isn’t. You’ve got one group who pay a premium to have exclusive rights to a location, and then you have others from the outside looking in. Trade unity? You’re having a laugh. It’s about one group beating down on another or one group paying to prevent another.
I see images like those in Soviet Tractor Factories, it’s for the greater good, or 1984, where all must follow the party line and to be honest that doesn’t sit right with the ethos of a Hackney Carriage, whose goal is ultimately his / her/ its own.
One association that was in favour of the rank is now against it, this decision obviously came after protestations from errm.....well the membership obviously, unfortunately they failed to advise their secretary, who was actually in favour of it.
It would be remiss not to point out that it has been suggested that those making the loudest protestations are behaving in a similar way to the actors in thunderbirds, unfortunately Gerry Anderson isn’t involved. Obviously, I couldn’t give a conspiracy theory out here, but I really wish I could.
In my view whatever decision the county council make will result in cabs ranking in the location. The facts are that there isn’t enough ranking space within the City and the facts are decent ranking space is at a premium. That’s not my fault, as stated in the last issue, sh*t happens.
Given Carlisle’s chequered history with taxi ranks, you’d have thought it would have learned its lesson, by the time this magazine hits the streets, we will see if it has done so. In my view the decision regarding this particular rank will tell the taxi owners of Carlisle if it is worth having any taxi association, because the principles are rather deep. If a radio circuit and its subscribers can dictate to a local authority where a rank should be, when from the outset they appear to take little interest with trade affairs within the City, it really suggests a serious problem.
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