Taxi Driver Online

It’s a free-for-all at taxi rank, say cabbies

FIGHTS are breaking out at a train station as passengers chaotically compete to get cabs.

Taxi drivers say the lack of a queuing system at Wickford railway station is putting them and their customers in danger.

Up to 200 train passengers usually exit the station at once during the rush hour and about ten of them typically require taxis, so hailing a cab in the busy street outside is a free-for-all.

There is no designated queuing area, so some times people form their own disorderly queues while others wait further along the street to be picked up.

Now cabbies are calling for improvements to be made, but say they aren’t getting anywhere.

Taxi driver Mark Everitt, 50, from Wickford, said: “I’ve seen violent fights and had someone banging on my car door, because they’d formed a queue and accused me of picking up a queue jumper.

“One driver had his cab dented when a fight broke out over whose cab it was.

“We’re put in an awkward position because we don’t know who to pick up and elderly people get pushed to the back.

“The customers fight with each other and get angry with us. It’s absolute chaos.

“There’s going to be a nasty accident if a queuing system isn’t brought in.”

The 70 cabbies who use the station want crowd control fencing and a “queue here” sign installed to create a designated pick-up spot, plus shelter for customers waiting for cabs and signs showing the station has a Hackney taxi rank.

The drivers each pay £300 annually to National Express, which runs the station, for permits to use the rank.

They claim they don’t see where their money goes and want to discuss their ideas for investment with the rail company, but have been demanding a meeting for more than a year without success.

Taxi driver Jason Stammers, 39, who represents 35 Wickford cabbies with Mr Everitt on the Basildon Hackney Proprietors Association, said: “We can’t see where our money goes. It wouldn’t cost much to put fences, a pole and a shelter up, which would make such a difference.”

A spokeswoman for National Express East Anglia said: “We note the issues raised by the taxi drivers using Wickford station and we will be pleased to discuss these matters with them and look forward to a positive dialogue.

“The fee paid by taxi drivers to operate from the station taxi rank represents good value at less than £1 a day.”

source: http://www.basildonrecorder.co.uk/news/ ... y_cabbies/

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

At least theres one part of the country where there's plenty of work then ! sounds like those Essex boys and girls can afford cabs

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

But that's answering a question that wasn't posed.

They want to know where the money goes, and what they get for it.

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IDFIMH

ffs......they give us money and still want a rank?

CC

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

Yes well you know these raIlway franchises anything to swell the coffers I emember the days before National Express lost the East coast franchise they upped the parking charges at peterborough and introduced their own taxi shuttle buses in com petition with other rail operators and the local taxis paying them for the right to use the station

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

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