Taxi Driver Online

basically these are "hacks" from west oxfordshire working for a ph only company in oxford.

most of the time they are working from and in oxford and have thier bookings despatched from the oxford office.

If they are hackneys then in short there is f*** all you can do about it.

Other than the plying for hire issue, if they do indeed do that.

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IDFIMH

But didn't you also so that the vehicles licensed outside the city of Oxford included PH?

And as regards the HCs from elsewhere you said:

"just change the meter to the company 'a' meter when in oxford"

Changing the meter sounds a bit ropey.

I may be mistaken on the ph aspect, but so far all i have seen are "hacks", the thing is Oxford have a different condition of fitness criteria to West Oxfordshire

So for example West Oxford would license a VW Transporter with all seats facing forward, and this could pass of as a hack.
The VW Transporter could only be licensed as a PH in Oxford, even then it would have to rear seats facing each other.

This could also apply to tinted windows, age, quality etc

Plus I'm sure the insurance rate differ in these area's.

Yet these guy's chose to work in Oxford, not thier Licensed area, I've made a point but I am told its some ruling from up north.

There aint a ruling.....the LA in oxford could attach a condition to the PH Operators license.

Or the Council in West Oxfordshire could ask the question where the license will be worked.

CC

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

i spoke to the taxi licensing and they tell me that thier is some kind of ruliong from up north, and they have been told this by thier legal team, as such thiers not a lot they can do about it.

i did suggest that they could make it a condition of their Operators License, so we'll see what happens.....

Have you looked at the other lots taxi by-laws to see if they have a return to nearest rank clause?

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IDFIMH

Would that clause only apply if the HC was within its own LA? Surely a Bye Law can't apply outside the LA to which it refers? Happy to be corrected on this though.

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Nobody told me to use my initiative. To err is human to arr is pirate.

If a hackney has a policy that says once free they should return to the nearest free approved rank, then IMO that applies no matter where the drop off point was.

In short these by-laws stop taxis waiting for work, whilst free, outside of their licensing area.

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IDFIMH

thats an other idea, I'll try to get the bye laws for these out of town "hacks"..

apparently its the stockton vs fidler case that allows this carry on, also the council is unable to put a condition on the operators licence as it is against european law.

They can put a condition on an operator's license, but no English act allows for hackneys to have anything to do with operator's or their licenses.

I still think your best bet is to ensure the non local lot adhere to their by-laws.

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IDFIMH

ok thier are no bye laws that require these "hacks" to go back to thier licensed areas, as you said mr sussex "theres f##k all" you can do about it.

i think we are going to try the operators condition again.

It would be very interesting to see what would happen if a council added a condition, to an operator's license, that said they could only pass work to vehicles licensed in the same area as they are based.

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IDFIMH

Like everything else I suppose they could well get away with it, although if challenged in court it could be a different story.

But then legal challenges to iffy policies are the exception rather than the rule.