Taxi Driver Online

Why can't we use bus lanes, asks boss of taxi service for disabled


THE founder of a charity that provides accessible transport for disabled people in the city and beyond says appeals for his smaller vehicles to be able to use bus lanes have been ignored by Bristol City Council.

The Disabled Travel Service, based in Fishponds, provides paid for transport for disabled people and people with mobility problems from within a 50-mile radius of Bristol.

The charity has two large minibuses and three smaller Citroen Berlingo cars to transport members.

Company secretary and founder Martyn Hancock said so far he had received £300 in council fines.

"We are transporting people to important appointments and on the Portway it can be the difference between a 10-minute journey and an hour," Mr Hancock told the Post.

"I have had £300 in fines from the council so far and feel like I am banging my head against a brick wall when I try to reason with them."

Last month Mr Hancock set up an online petition on the council website under the title 'Disabled Travel should be able to use bus lanes' saying his charity was fined every time its taxis use bus lanes in Bristol.

He claims this is wrong because the charity is providing a service under section 19 of the Community Transport Act as amended by the Local Transport Act 2008.

But the council disagrees saying his vehicles are neither registered as buses nor licensed as taxis so therefore by law can not use bus lanes.

Mr Hancock has written to the council outlining his concerns but he says his appeals, along with concerns raised by services users and by Bristol East MP Kerry McCarthy (Lab) have been ignored.

Mr Hancock said: "Our charity has been providing its services to disabled people in Bristol some 12 years and in that time we have operated without any cash handout from any local council – especially Bristol within whose boundaries we are based. Yet when we approach Mr Peter Mann, the transport director at Bristol City Council to ask whether we can be allowed to use the bus lanes with our wheelchair accessible cars, which do the same service as taxis but under the Community Transport Act, our letters are ignored.

"We wrote to him in November 2011 and again in January 2012 without any reply.

"Our local MP Kerry McCarthy has written on our behalf and so have several of our members who have recruited the services of their MPs.

"Yet no one from the transport services department appears to have had the courtesy to reply or acknowledge any of the numerous communications.

"This is indicative of the disdain this department of Bristol City Council holds its people and community groups in who do not ask the council for financial help. Why?"

A spokeswoman for Bristol City Council said: "Bus lanes have strict legal orders relating to them.

"Taxis must be licensed, and bus services must be registered in order to use the bus lanes.

"DTS vehicles are neither registered as buses nor licensed as taxis. So although the council appreciates the organisation provides a valuable service, it cannot legally permit these vehicles to use bus lanes under the legislation as it stands."

Disabled Travel Service is a member of the community Transport Association and, won the Enterprising Bristol 2006 Community Award and was runner-up in 2009 in the Post Business Community Awards.

Mr Hancock's online petition is available to sign up to until December and can be found at http:// epetitions.bristol.gov.uk/epetition_ core/community/petition/1866.

For more information about the Disabled Travel Service call Mr Hancock on 0117 3305916.

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/t-use-bu ... story.html

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

I think the council are correct,

I suspect he has things like Doblo's as his transport and if they are seen in the lanes the general pubic will think it's ok for him to use them as well,

The other thing in the council favour is as they ride the disabled around who aren't working people for obvious reasons, why would they need to be in any hurry to get there anyway,

Flip it over and look for compromise and the only thing I would say might work, and only if his company stays as it is and doesn't then try to become a PH company is all his vehicled will need to be liveried up with 6 inch lettering to say AUTHORISED BUS LANE USER so the pubic knows why something that looks like his own vehicle is in the bus lane,

I suspect though Mr Hancock won't be wanting to pay license fees though, so even if it seems harsh, not a taxi, not a bus = not entitled to use the bus lane, plus if you set a president next week you'll have Autoglass wanting to use them as well because they need to get to a customer with a broken screen before they freeze to death or Tesco lorries because Mrs Jones needs her Rice Krispies in a hurry and until the lorry rolls in to unload her local Tesco has none for sale.

Coif and PCV licence their minibuses, Make their drivers get a D1 licence, If they say they are supplying a Taxi type service then they should run Taxis and use Taxi drivers.......end of!!

Bloody Scroungers masquerading as charities where the managers take chunky wages...it really gets on my Tits.

Amen to that

If these disabled groups want to be Hackneys then lets have them tested and the drivers vetted and medical checked.

If the general public see them they are going to think they can do the same.

Do you mean like those "chuggers" (charity muggers) that accost you on the High Street?

Two of the founders of TAG gave themselves £2.5 MILLION in "Dividend payments" last year.

Charity begins at home?

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Former taxi driver

Why is this specialist PH company described as a charity multiple times in the article?

(Whats TAG?)

Because they want to keep all the cake and to eat it and your's as well..........greedy toe rags playing the Charity/Disabled game for all its worth .

TAG is a company which employs those tw@ts who stop people in the street to sign them up for a direct debit to various well known charities. They get about £25 from the charity for each person who signs up to a direct debit contribution of £5 a month. They are not employed by the charity. As the great man Clarkson suggested about others, they should be taken outside and shot, in front of their families.

Read today's Sunday Telegraph for further information.

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Former taxi driver

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IDFIMH