Bristol Hackey Carriage drivers given gold award - but where are they when you need them?Friday, September 30, 2011, 16:44Bristol City Council is awarding ten Hackney Carriage taxi drivers in Bristol Gold Standard certificates for their exceptional work.
The Gold Standard is a kitemark for taxi and private hire drivers, which was introduced by Bristol City Council Licensing Department last year. The scheme is designed to help drivers improve their skills in the service they offer in particular in how they meet the needs of all passengers including those with disabilities. Since introducing this pioneering scheme 64 drivers have gained the gold standard and over a hundred are studying for it. The training course was devised by the Council with GoSkills (which is licensed by the government to be the Sector Skills Council for the Passenger Transport industries).
The Council with partners, including Unite and Destination Bristol, devised the Gold Standard in recognition of the importance that high quality taxi and private drivers make to the city, its residents and its visitors. As well as literacy and numeracy skills, map reading and other transport aspects the course focuses particularly on passenger care and meeting the needs of disabled passengers.
"The taxi and private hire trade are vitally important to the economic and social well being of the City of Bristol," said the Lord Mayor of Bristol. "For visitors to the city a taxi driver will often be the first point of contact they have while many permanent residents of the city, particularly disabled people, depend on the provision of high quality taxi and private hire services to sustain and enhance their quality of life."
I can't help but wonder who these drivers are? They're certainly nowhere to be seen whenever I need a cab. In fact, my experiences of taxis in Bristol are so bad I hardly ever call upon them any more. Not that I'd be able to get one anyway, the queues on a weekend at the allotted ranks are just ridiculous and you rarely see taxis in Redland.
The amount of times they've arrived earlier than requested and left before the allotted slot because we weren't ready; or started driving the opposite way from your destination and claiming they thought you meant somewhere else; or even driving the wrong way down one way streets. I don't know, perhaps I'm just a magnet for bad taxi drivers?
It would be interesting to hear other peoples' experiences of Bristol taxis…
Source; http://www.redlandpeople.co.uk/Bristol- ... story.html
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