Taxi Driver Online

I agree with the comment that if the company pays the fuel and dictates hours worked they would fail the "self employed" test. I would suggest that under example 4 the drivers would be better buying their own fuel. I use a Citroen Xsara Picasso 1560cc which normally runs at .14p per mile in diesel consumption. If the driver buys the fuel he will be able to submit to HMRC as an expense quite legitimately surely. Under example 4 then he might be better paying say .26p per mile for the 200 and .19 thereafter if the car has similar consumption to the one I use.

As a point of interest I normally cover 80 to 100 miles on a Friday night 7 hour shift and a similar amount on an early start Sunday am shift. This is driving PH. I have only done one hackney shift since getting my hackney badge so was just finding my feet as it were. I have driven 5 miles for a 1 1/2 mile job!

It goes to show how the numbers are different in different areas. Owner drivers can pay up to £180 pw radio rent depending on the type of circuit "membership" they have.

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

My first wage as a Laboratory Technician was £6.95 p.w. in 1972 !!!!

We don't tend to do jobs where you have to go 5 miles for a 1 1/2 mile fare in Hackney. We have some private hire cars for jobs like that. The reason that we charge by the mile and we put the fuel in is so that there are no arguments about money taken and the percentage to be paid and no arguments about a driver not filling up properly at the end of their shift. And because the driver gets to keep more of the money they earn, they are happier.

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Grandad,

It was rumoured a couple of years ago that a Leicester company was going to try to get into Melton but nothing came of it. We do sometimes get the odd car that has dropped off in Melton hanging around to do a few fares but they are usually told to do one. There was a Syston based company operating a car in Melton. They got a Melton PH operators license, a Melton telephone number and a plated private hire car for Melton but they then kept sending Charnwood cars and drivers to do the work. Our council pointed out the error of their ways and they stopped using the Melton number so that they could send out the Charnwood cars properly but I did notiuce a while ago that the Melton plated car was being used on a school run out to Lutterworth.
I agree that a couple of big maintenance bills could make things tight but we have a good mechanic who checks all the cars out every week and so far we have avoided any real nasty shocks.
Because the drivers choose their own hours to work i would find it to troublesome to work out a fare "fixed" rate for them to pay so I use the easy way and charge by the mile. That way the driver only pays if they actually get a job.

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Grandad,