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and from the month before, courtesy of taxitalk
Trouble in Paradise
I try my best to tell everyone that Carlisle has the best taxi system in the world, I do this primarily because I am proud to come from Carlisle and secondly because the system we have in place seems to suit all concerned. Unlike other places we don't have problems with cross border hiring, we don't have illegal plying for hire and the birds always awake residents singing in their own inimitable fashion on beautiful sunny mornings.
This was until recently.
In 1994 the then Labour council decided to de-limit taxi numbers, prior to the council decision we what a 100% purpose built taxi fleet, this was as a result of a council decision back in the late 1970's. The council decision to delimit hackney numbers coincided with their decision to permit saloon cars to be licensed for the first time in a quarter of a century. The only proviso being that the station rank would be for existing licensed hackneys and any newly licensed wheelchair accessible vehicles. Indeed, upon licensing a saloon hackney carriage, you agreed not to ply for hire within 50 meters of the station taxi rank.
This condition of license has been challenged on a couple of occasions, the council have so far been consistent and stuck to their decision that only WAV's should be permitted there, we have now a third attempt by saloon owners to be able to pick up from the station rank when there are queues of passengers.
Quite obviously the trade in Carlisle in now, as it was always very likely to be, is split into two camps, WAV owners and saloon owners, fortunately neither camp is armed.
Saloon owners point to the unfairness of the current system, they are hackneys after all, WAV owners point to the greater expense they have made to be able to use the station rank and the fact that saloon owners upon purchase of their vehicles knew the rules and seemingly now want them changed.
The very fact that some saloon owners are former WAV owners, they seem to be the ones shouting the loudest, and to all intents and purposes have made a 100% change of view, cannot and should not really go without undue notice.
Of course I am biased, I'm a WAV owner, in my view our local authority should be doing its damned best to encourage the purchase of WAV's and through the exorbitant costs of the product, a commitment and investment that is beyond the price of a saloon vehicle.
Most of the problems in Carlisle today span from the poorly conceived idea of delimitation in 1994, the fact that many of the councillors who made the decision in 1994 are now retired from the local political scene does tend to bear testament to the irresponsibility of them and the contempt to which the taxi trade is in general treated.
This is of course why people treat local politicians with a little contempt in general, as they remain aloof from being made accountable for their poor decisions.
The human creature does not have hindsight, but hindsight tells me in Carlisle's case, that if the council in 1994 decided to delimit, but to have only permitted WAV's with a three-year maximum age upon license, to be licensed, we would have had a far more committed profession now in Carlisle. Needless to say, we wouldn't have the trade split in the manner of which it currently seems to be.
The way WAV owners in Carlisle see it, is that they're the ones who have done everything right, purchased the correct vehicles for the job, they see themselves as the victims, with saloon car owners being portrayed as part time wannabee's and snides, who have little investment in the trade outside the weekend periods when they can be bothered to work. To a certain degree this is unfortunately the case, however there are certainly as many professional saloon drivers as WAV.
Delimitation in Carlisle has brought a 500% increase in hackney carriages, however whereas WAV's were already present there has been a 2:1 ratio in favour of saloons as opposed to the WAV. This would have been more if the carrot of the station rank had not been there for WAV's.
The hackney owners in the city whom own saloons, yet don't want to use the station rank, are the unfortunate victims, as the association are very likely to push for the full implementation of the DDA, sooner rather than later.
The bad guys will be the local association, who are merely doing nothing less than offering the view of their members and therefore trying to make a substantive case for the status quo.
The fact of the matter actually is that each time the trade receive a fare increase, it is the whole trade that benefits, it cannot go without saying that Carlisle's fares are actually higher than Newcastle Upon Tyne, Blackpool, Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds over a 3 mile journey, there is little doubt this would have been achieved if it were not through the cooperation between the association and the local authority.
Driver's names being removed from driver's identification badges would have not occurred without the association.
Advertising of vehicles, which was disallowed by many previous regimes, has been permitted through the association and local authority partnership.
Carlisle has now more taxi ranks than ever before, again through the local association.
Yet the association is still vilified by a percentage of the trade whose only commitment to the trade seems to be a weekend period, what have the Romans ever done for us is quite definitely a scenario.
By the time you read this a decision may have been made on the use of the station cab rank by saloons, if it goes the way of the saloon, we will undoubtedly have the death knells of the full time taxi trade in Carlisle, I'll try to keep you informed.
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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin
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