Taxi Driver Online

I was looking forward to being able to offer a swivel seat Wharfie, but it seems rather useless. The problem is (for me) that the Vito/V-class is too high and the seat wont drop enough. The lowering suspension doesnt help either, as it lowers at the back, and the swivel seat is at the front! Thus, the elderly still prefer the saloons for ease of access.

This will make you laugh, but the most popular car on our fleet (for the elderly and people on crutches) is far and away the.... get this...

Ford Focus.

The seat adjustments are amazing. They can just "flop" into the seat.

There are 5 or 6 Focus Estates on our fleet now, and they are incredibly popular. With the average around town one or two passengers they are (surprising but true) plenty big enough. Not so good on longer jobs or a full car-load, but this just proves the point that a mixed fleet allows you to please more of the customers, more of the time.

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There is Significant Unmet Demand for my Opinion.

Yes Andy7, it's a pity that the kind of common sense and practical experience demonstrated in your two posts isn't taken on board by the authorities.

Dusty

Gosh!

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There is Significant Unmet Demand for my Opinion.

I phoned our councils Licensing top bod today, he was away , but I said
to the Licensing Head "i am given to understand that the government has issued an order on the council, instructing them to consult regarding going all, WA, could you please tell me how you propose to do this?

Where have you got this information from?

"Off the internet its on the department of transport website"

"I will get someone to get it for me"

"Well beware as there is no specifications and not much guidance"

the rest I will I would rather keep confidential, suffice to say that our council did not know.

Wharfie

A position no-doubt, it shares with many other councils.

With referance to the DDA generally I repeat the experiences of the WAV Gateshead venture the year before last.

We set up an office to meet an alledged un-met demand for WAV's in our area. This was done in conjunction with the group alledging this demand and an account was opened for them as soon as we started. The very first job WAV Gateshead took off the phone was from this group and they insisted a saloon car was sent as the disabled person who needed to get home COULDN'T travel in any other type of vehicle.

People confined to a wheelchair are NOT the only disabled people in this country, and many of them DO NOT WISH to travel in anything other than a saloon.

The DDA is as discriminative towards people with disabilities as anything else.

B. Lucky

Very True. But the DDA doesnt actually say there should be an all WAV fleet. It was an EC Directive that required all Taxis to be WAVs by April next year (not incorporated in the DDA 2000) - but that directive has since been rescinded.

The fundamentals of the DD Act, put in simple fashion, are that it is illegal to discriminate against people just because they have a disability. Thus, it could equally be argued, that we should be able to accommodate people on stretchers too.

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There is Significant Unmet Demand for my Opinion.

"Private Hire Vehicles
15. The Task Force asked DETR to consider mechanisms for increasing the availability of accessible private hire vehicles. It recommended that the DRC should consider this issue when DPTAC made its recommendations in 2000. It also asked that Section 37, which referred to the transport of guide dogs and other assistive dogs, should be implemented as soon as possible." taken from
http://194.202.202.185/drtf/minutes/Minutes11.htm

This was taken from the minutes of a meeting held in 1999, yet we hear nothing of the implimentation of the act to P/H.

Is this not discriminative in itself.

Why these North Eastern Authorities are named when we have more than twice as many WAV's as saloons.

Anyway the numbers of vehicles don't stop discrimination, its the attitudes of drivers and I would love to know how they intend to regulate that.

B. Lucky

Oh aye, the Disability Discrimination Act was passed in 1995 not 2000

Mick,
the circular is now issued and the bellyaching has to stop, its not helpfull.

London is all WAV but they have the order to go all wav!

weve got 6 years to arrange the transition and another 10 to di it, its that simple

Wharfie

Personally I couldn't care less if all PH vehicles where made to be WAVs. Perhaps I'm quite relaxed, cos I know it's not going to happen, and even if it did the trade would just go and get 9 seater 'O' licenses.

The more that the HC trade keep on about everyone else having WAVs, the harder it is going to be to convince the government, that some HCs should be exempt.

What the trade should be doing nationally, is to be requesting subsidies from government for those drivers wishing to buy WAVs. But then we have the major cities taxi trade doing just fine with WAVs, so if they can cope with the extra burden, why can't elsewhere?

Those districts other than the mandatory ones, in the DOT's list, are mainly districts with quotas, and non quotas rural districts.

I have a huge amount of sympathy for the rural taxi trade, if the DDA is implemented in these districts, it will kill the HC trade, but allow the PH trade to thrive.

In the quotas areas, well if the queue jumping leeches have enough money to buy a black-market plate, then they have got enough to buy a WAV.

yes preciseley,
go forward and do the job, its not helpfull having continual battles against it, it saps the energy.

but its what the taxi trade does, we fall into the trap every time, now councils have the orders we should not be talking about silly predjudices
and the like but real sores on implementation to open the grant chest

some areas will lose thier fleet though

Wharfie

Mick, there's nothing in the Act for PH WAV provision, so that would need a new Act of Parliament.

The DDA does nothing on its own as regards WAVs - all it does it give the Govt the power to make regulations to make HCs accessible.

They've had this power for 8 years now, and we've still to see the regulations for HCs.

Dusty

Hardly, we had an 'informal discussion document' about 6 years ago.

Now we've had an extremely brief Parliamentary statement.

We've not even seen the necessary regs, never mind had any kind of consultation on them.

The informal consultation 6 years ago said:

"The Government's formal consultation on the draft taxi accessibility regulations will be accompanied by a full regulatory appraisal assessing the costs and benefits of proposed regulations. Costs to small businesses will be highlighted."

So I think there's a long way to go yet.

Dusty

As someone in a council not named you can be complacement, the rest its reality.

Wharfie