Taxi Driver Online

Yellows ok cos it looks white in the dark

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

What a load of Sh*ite the councillor speaketh...he only wants them blue because he is a Blue'ist....as if no one else could paint a car blue...What a grade "A" Numpty.............Is it any more dangerous a place than any other city that have for the most part Cabs of many colours....

What a weak and feeble argument...

Looking at the PDF file which Captain Cab has uploaded, I believe the colour scheme is the least of Bristol's worries. the final para on page 3 suggest the L.A. are also refusing to transfer plates.

They may well be refusing to transfer the plate, and whilst I understand the concerns of the owners of the vehicle with the plate attached to it, the plate belongs to the council so surely if a driver no longer requires the plate they have every right to ask for it's return. Nobody is stopping a driver from selling his business they are preventing them from selling something that doesn't actually belong to them

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

Indeed they may well refuse to transfer plate, but that doesn't make that action legal, in fact it's quite the reverse.

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IDFIMH

Council should foot bill for cost of resprays

I T was interesting to read the various comments in the letters pages of Friday's Evening Post regarding the Bristol taxi drivers issue with Bristol City Council concerning the respraying of their taxis to conform to the new policy introduced in May 2008.

The one thing that struck me was how many people are prepared to pass comment when clearly they know absolutely nothing about the subject matter.

One comment in particular really made my blood boil, "over-inflated prices", and apparently, we all want to earn £20 for 15 minutes work. Do you have any idea what it costs to keep a taxi on the road? Clearly not!

Depending on vehicle type operated, the cost per mile to operate that vehicle, excluding wages, is around £1.20. Bristol's current day-time tariff is around £1.70 per mile, plus initial start fare of £2.50. The average journey (based on BCC calculations) is three miles, so – fare around £7.60 minus running costs, the driver earns just £4. With the average working practice of one job per hour outside rush hours, that driver is actually earning less than the national minimum wage for much of the day.

Although the operating costs of a taxi is rising year on year, fuel by 24 per cent, insurance by approximately 20 per cent, licences, tests etc, our fares have not increased for two years. The council has decided to sit on our annual cost of living fare rise request for nearly eight months despite the fact we desperately need that rise and which only represents just 3 per cent per year over the past two years.

Whether or not you agree with a uniform colour fleet policy and the other changes to operating conditions for taxi operators is neither here nor there, but the facts still remain, under this new policy, taxi operators are required to respray all the existing fleet with a non-standard, not available through any vehicle manufacturer, shade of blue. Despite the council's own fictitious estimates costing much less than our quotations, a proper respray will cost around £1,500 plus two weeks loss of earnings while the work is done. Then operators will be restricted to what advertising can be displayed. All-over body wraps will no longer be permitted, nothing on the bonnet, roof or boot and nothing above the lower window line. This restriction could potentially lose an operator up to £2,000 per year.

We potentially lose up to £6,000 in a year so Bristol City Council gets a "pretty" looking taxi fleet. Is that fair? We own the taxis, not the council. If they want them resprayed – let them pay for it. And remember, it's your money they will be using to defend this legal action.

Martyn Lawrence, (former taxi trade representative).

I SEE Bristol City Council are at it again. My word, this time it's the colour of taxis. Can't help thinking that if this current council would have been around in Brunel's day, wow, no suspension bridge, no Temple Meads and, of course, much more. Just a thought.

Phil Hewitt, Brentry.

IT was a better than expected response to our plight concerning the colour change to Bristol taxis; our grateful thanks to the Evening Post and Radio Bristol for their coverage.

It is abundantly clear that the vast majority of the people of Bristol agree with us that, the "new" colour policy for Bristol's taxis as introduced by Bristol City Council is nothing short of madness.

The council has chosen a shade of blue that no vehicle manufacturer can supply from stock, therefore, if any of our trade members decides to buy a brand new £30,000 vehicle, it still has to be resprayed.

To look at the wider picture, we in the taxi trade have faced up to 30 per cent increases in fuel bills, 20 per cent increase in insurance costs, and bear in mind we are not insuring a standard car. Our average insurance costs are well over £1,000 per year.

In addition, we are competing with night buses, originally six routes covered, now 14, and of course there is the work we lose to the illegal taxis and private hire, which work our city with a completely free hand due to a very serious lack of enforcement by this very same council. Throw into the equation the recession, the taxi trade being in a deregulated state (over 80 new multi-seater taxis have joined the fleet since this barmy policy was introduced), and vehicle licenses are still being issued like confetti, nor have we even had a cost of living fare rise for two years (another lie and broken promise from our council).

Can anyone give me a good reason as to why I should now spend another £1,500 on painting my taxi, and why I should accept potentially losing up to a further £2,000 a year through lost advertising revenue just to give this council a "pretty" looking taxi fleet?

Where does this council think the money comes from?

From just one of 850 taxi drivers struggling to make ends meet.

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/lifestyle/Council-foot-cost-resprays/article-2513612-detail/article.html

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

So it's illegal to refuse to transfer the plate over?

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

Oh yes, well at least in England and Wales.

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IDFIMH

So why would they be worried about it

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

'Skin' solution to blue taxis dispute


A CHEAPER alternative to respraying has been suggested as a way of solving the ongoing row over Bristol Blue taxis.

The idea of putting a new "skin" on the vehicle was suggested by Bristol City Council's solicitor, ahead of a hearing at Bristol Magistrates' Court to decide whether forcing hackney carriage drivers to change the colour of their vehicles is fair or not.

Three drivers appeared at court yesterday as part of the trade's legal battle against the council.

Stephen Sully, Gulaid Nagan and John Newcombe are the first of the city's 780 hackney carriage drivers who are challenging its insistence on a uniform livery.

The authority has said it will not accept one as a test case, so potentially every driver who believes the policy is unfair could lodge similar appeals.

The case was adjourned until October so the taxi drivers could provide a proper explanation of the legal grounds for their appeal.

Speaking after the hearing, the drivers' solicitor, Antony Schiller, said: "We are appealing on the basis of fairness. The council should look at every individual case and not have a blanket rule.

"A driver in his 60s, for example, would still have to pay around £2,000, and it wouldn't be worth it. That's unfair."

Two years ago the authority announced all of its hackney carriages had to be painted blue by next May, to provide a familiar city image like the famous yellow taxis in New York.

With less than nine months to go, only 140 of the fleet have been changed, and if the rest do not follow suit they could lose their licenses when they come up for renewal.

The drivers tried to overturn the policy in the High Court last year but failed.

The council is hoping to avoid fighting 780 appeals in the magistrates' court, and has suggested a new service run by a private company that offers to put a Bristol Blue "skin" over the car instead of a respray.

Bristol Blue Customs was set up by Imran Ahmed, whose father is a taxi driver.

Depending on the type of vehicle, resprays have been estimated by drivers as costing anywhere from £1,500 to as much £4,000.

Mr Ahmed says his service, which was only set up a few weeks ago at the Bridge Road Industrial Estate in Kingswood, costs £695.

The cost to each driver of lodging a contested appeal against the council decision is £700.

Mr Ahmed said: "A car resprayed in Bristol Blue can't be sold anywhere else, but the skin is removable so the vehicle keeps its resale value."

This type of skin is only guaranteed to last five years, which the chairman of the National Taxi Association for Bristol and district, Shafiq Ahmed, sees as a problem.

After the hearing he said: "It has a limited lifespan so it's not a one-off solution and may have to be replaced three or four times during the lifespan of the vehicle."

Council spokeswoman Vicky O'Loughlin said: "We have chosen this blue as part of supporting the image of Bristol, which is also good for tourism and the taxi trade. Our research shows the cost of a respray is much cheaper than prices quoted publicly recently by certain taxi drivers."

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

Will the skin company be around in a few years time when the skin needs taken off.......will they pay for a repaint then.....if the paint comes off with the skin?

CC

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

That's what I like about taxi drivers, they don't like people making money off their backs unless of course it's them or their family that's doing it

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

Oh dear.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-11486084

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IDFIMH