Taxi Driver Online

Bristol taxis 'refused to take me to Hartcliffe'

Bristol cabbies have denied claims that Hartcliffe is being treated as a 'no-go' area by some drivers on late night runs.

It follows a complaint from a Bristol mother who said she and her friends were refused a ride home from the city centre by four taxi drivers as soon as they revealed their destination.

She said the group was queueing on the city centre at 2am on Sunday morning when they were turned away away.

Ayesha Wilson, aged 33, who lives in Hartcliffe with her two children, said: "My friends and I had been celebrating a 30th birthday party on Saturday night and decided to take a taxi as we were unsure if the buses were running because of the snow.
"As soon as the taxi marshall told the first taxi driver that we wanted to go to Hartcliffe he just drove off.

"This happened with the following three taxis which all refused to take us.

"All of us were relatively sober, we definitely weren't rowdy, and felt we were discriminated against because of where we lived.

"I really do not understand this because the Fulford Road and Herridge Road area where we wanted to go is perfectly quiet and respectable.

"When I challenged the taxi marshall over the behaviour of the taxi companies he said taxi drivers were within their rights to pick and choose their customers."

Ms Wilson said the fifth taxi agreed to take the party of women home.
Shafiq Hamed chairman of the Taxi Club Association, which represents Hackney carriage drivers in Bristol, said it was not true that Hartcliffe was being treated as a no-go area by any of his members.

He said: "There is definitely not a situation with this area at all. This was obviously a one-off situation in which there may have been other issues.

"There could be occasions when drivers would refuse to take a large party of women if they were drunk or rowdy because it could put them in a vulnerable position.

"Drivers are feeling the pinch in these economic times and they would not turn away a fare of £12 to £13 to take these ladies home.

"The experienced queue marshalls work with us very well and would not put customers in a vehicle who are not suitable."

But he said on occasions inexperienced marshalls would sometimes try to foist 'troublesome' passengers on a cabby to get them of the queue.
Simon Caplan, spokesman for Bristol City Council which licenses the city's Hackney carriages, said: "We have not received any complaints from anyone of that nature about any official taxi ranks within the city centre at the weekend.

"If taxis are operating from a rank they are bound to take anyone who is in a fit state as long as the destination is within the city boundary.

"Our advice to any members of the public who feel taxi drivers are breaching regulations is to take the licence number and report it to Taxi Licensing."

He said the council would contact Ms Wilson and the incident would be investigated.

Councillor Ron Stone, chairman of the city council's taxi licensing committee, said: "I am very disappointed to hear this has taken place and any drivers acting in this way would certainly be in breach of their license.

"If we can find out who is doing this then we will taken action.

"But I suspect some drivers don't want to go all the way out to Hartcliffe because they don't want to run back into the city empty.

"Some taxis operating from the city centre rank want to stay within the city centre areas like Clifton, Cotham, Redland and similar locations where they can almost guarantee a return fare back to the city centre rank."

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

I hear of this kind of behaviour with the Liverpool HC's not wanting to go to the Wirral all the time. They don't want to go the extra mile outside the city limits, although they are open to negotation, usually around twice the actual fare rate

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