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Kirklees Council taxi driver penalty point plan could be dropped before it even begins
A CONTROVERSIAL plan to penalise taxi drivers in Huddersfield looks set to be scrapped – before it even begins. Councillors are being recommended to make a complete U-turn over the penalty points scheme, three months before it is implemented. And it means Kirklees Council have spent many thousands of pounds on a scheme they now propose to ditch.
There have been many protests over the plans and a threat of strike action by cabbies, concerned at another level of enforcement. Many, in fact, have joined the union GMB in the run-up to the planned introduction of the scheme in January 2012.
But now councillors on Kirklees Licensing Panel are being urged to reject the scheme, which was approved last March. Officers admit there are no funds in place to back up the scheme, which would have seen drivers penalised for such offences as overcharging, keeping unsafe vehicles, bad behaviour and eating while driving.
Licensing manager Catherine Walter has told councillors: “Concerns brought to our attention include the scheme being an unnecessary layer of enforcement. “The scheme was also regarded as cumbersome and time consuming and likely to lead to inconsistency and fairness.
“The cost of senior officers’ time in adjudicating on disputes was likely to be untenable and an unnecessary and inappropriate use of senior officers time. “The proposal is now the penalty points scheme be abandoned in favour of a reward scheme. Without extra funding for an IT system, it will not be possible to implement it”.
The Licensing and Safety Committee backed the proposal earlier this year but taxi drivers immediately threatened to strike if it was implemented. Any driver who racked up 12 points in a year would have been stripped of their licence by Kirklees. Some of the offences were taken from the general penalty points system used on all motorists – including driving without insurance and using a mobile phone at the wheel.
However, many of the offences in the Kirklees system would have been unique to cabbies – including overcharging for a journey, failing to wear a driver’s badge and jumping the queue at a taxi rank.
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