Taxi Driver Online

Sorry if I am asking a question thats been asked before.
I'm new to forums and dont know if theres some sort of protocol ?

My interests in the industry is from running 2 vehicles on airport runs.
from that i then bought a small garage that was owned by a large taxi company for the general up keep of its fleet, the owner sold up the taxi business and garage seperately. i bought the garage with my 2 brothers who are both mechanics. we do lots of repairs etc on taxis [private hire mainly] and also local members of the public. we are a authorised mot testing station but cant carry out mot's on the local taxis. only the local council carries mot's. its bit of a talking point here as the drivers want more choice and not be ltd to just the one testing station which as a large waiting list apparently.

I've spoken to my licensing officer as a operator of 2 mini buses and asked why i cant go to an independent mot station. the reply was that it as to be done by the councils mot station so as they can have some control of it and see when vehicles are booked in etc and an handle grievances in house. my point is that by keeping it in house it looks cloak and dagger and biased.

as anyone had problems with their mot testing procedures and is it a local testing station or council one ? and how was the complaint procedure handled?

is there any other forums i can ask the question on ?

Hi mate and welcome to the forums.

Our Council lets us MOT our motors at any MOT Station or we can have them MOT'd at the Council, it sounds like the Council are on to a good thing by forcing all the PH and Taxis into their garage for the tests. It doesn't matter every MOT station comes under the VOSA sign so your garage is as good as theirs. Keep on at them to make them chage their minds, I bet your Council charges top whack for an MOT where as you can do them much cheaper.

Let us know how you get on.

http://taxi-driver.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=11379

Point your council to the best practise guidance, it does say that councils should not restrict taxi owners to one testing station

Quite a few councils allow any MOT station to apply for the rights to test taxi/PH. They are assessed by the council and if they meet the required standard they are allowed to test taxi/PH.

My local council has about half a dozen approved taxi/PH testers, two of whom aren't even in the local area.

So you need to change your council's policy, and the best thing for starters is to get a petition up asking the licensing committee to review the situation.

Get as many drivers to sign the petition, and customers for that matter, present it to the committee who will have to respond.

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IDFIMH

what often happens is, whereas a test is £45 to joe public, a test station bids (say) £20 to get all 500 taxis to test there. then slip in a few silly faults costing £20 to fix, and make the fees up...

a HGV test station would be far better...

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

Proto...what??????????

What would be better is having the test station only doing tests, not repairs.

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Grandad,

We've got loads of them round here, our office has it's own MOT testing bay which is HERE

ive only ever seen 1, that was in Rugby

of course HGV test stations dont do repairs

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

Our lot are very crafty.

Our badge is £60.............but the MOT is free

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if you cannot be yourself, then who can you be.

Nottingham city council only do tests.

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Grandad,

We only have the one place to go to and it's not a council one

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