Taxi Driver Online

Morning people. Last night I had a pick up from our local bus station. After waiting for 10 minutes, my customers came to my window, gave the correct name and off we set. Within 10 seconds I had a hackney up my ass flashing his lights and another right along side me within 6 inches of the car beeping his horn and in no uncertain terms telling me to pull over. I just ignored them for a bit, until the one next to me got so close I had to puill over to avoid a crash.

The two hackney drivers were screaming at me......we've got 3 fuc***g witnesses to you touting"......"say goodbye to your license and £5000 you tw**"............ Well obviously this was a genuine booking and I had done nothing at all wrong, It does turn out that when my customers were walking towards my car, one of the group asked one of the hackney's how much it would be to their destination.....when he said "that'll be £40 mate", he said, no worries we've got one booked anyway.

Now, this was booked through our office over the phone and as we are a very large company, all the bookings are actually recorded, so there is no question that I was touting at all, the proof is there should anybody request it.

What I am wandering is, is it worth making a complaint about the two hackneys nearly forcing me off the road? I didn't get their plate numbers, but if they complain about me to the council, surely they would have their details?

I tell you what though, the 3 passengers in my car were shaken up and vowed never to get a hackney again......well done boys .

One last thing, the hackney wanted £40 for the fare, it only ran at £18 on the meter! How can they charge such ridiculous amounts?

you obviously have cause for complaint if you so wish. but theres not a lot you can do unless you have taken note of their plate numbers. if you do get a letter from the council to asking you to explain what you where doing, you can response with a counter allergation, you also have witnesses to the way they behaved, your not the one who has done anything wrong or have anything to lose.

As far as proving you were not touting goes, then as you know, Taxifast record every telephone call and keep computer records of data dispatch, i think its held for 3 months but dont quote me on the time. so the office will have evidence to back you up if you do get a letter from the council.

dont worry about it paul. some of the HC lads round here are their own worse enemies, and they wonder why customers book taxifast when there are HC waiting on a rank right by the pick up point...? it was probably more to do with the fact that it was a half decent fare for a tuesday night and they thought that your fare was asking you how much you would do the job for.

i had a similar experience a few weeks ago, i had a booking to pick someone up outside a pub on a busy street in town. as im approching the pub theres a bloke outside waving his arm in the air at me, sure enough i pull up and its the right booking. before the bloke even closes the door there a metrocab pulled up next to me and the driver giving a right gob full. but, like you, i know i have done nothing wrong so i just rise above it and ignore him. what i did was once the passenger got out, i took note of the date, time, place, booked name and data pad job#, so if i did get a letter from the council accusing me of touting, i had the information i needed to pull the records off the system.
no letter came....

like most disricts, once you get outside the councils city limits the HC lads can quote a price instead of running it on a meter. ours is always on the meter unless the office quotes a price for an out of area job, and then it's near enough what it would run to on the meter anyway.

i've heard of people being stung by black cabs for £20 just for going to Saltash, fore street from town, dispite it saying £8 on the meter.

again paul, they often moan 'why do you PH keep taking the work off us?" perhaps that is a question they should be asking themselves.

cheers for the advice Steve, I must admit, it did shake me up a little bit!

I phoned control straight after as well just to let them know what happened.

Whenever I used to hear other PH drivers slating hackneys I used to think it was unfair as we're all out to make a living, however this has changed my mind now!!

I would have remembered their plate numbers no matter what.

But you must contact the council, and give them the names and addresses of the punters. Then they can check it all out.

I would also go back to the rank and find out the plate numbers of the cars involved.

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IDFIMH

I just can't work out why these things never happen to me.

Perhaps certain cars only pick on the ones they think they will get away with it.

I pray for the day when some idiot picks on the wrong mush.

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IDFIMH

to be honest i got better things to do when i'm on shift, rather than sitting in the police station givng my statment as to why i just leathered some gobs**t, or being interviewed by the council about my actions.

I agree Steveo, which is why I would make notes of everything the idiots say and do, maybe even ask them to repeat it so I got it right, and then report them to the council.

Now the council might not be able to do much without independant witnesses, but I bet you anything, it will not happen again.

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IDFIMH

Don't suffer with all this stuff, which is a good thing.

Although the biggest problem we have is ourselves jumping lights to get back first to the rank.

Flyer

Of course if they hadn't got greedy and sought a cheaper quote from hackney while they had a booked car waiting, then the whole episode would never have happened.

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

I was nearly run off the road the other night by a cab.
It was a skoda with the plate number 85.

A skoda? A Cab? Yikes.

If that freaks you out, I saw a nuclear reactor on TV a while back, with SKODA on the pressure vessel, now THAT'S scary!

As long as they don't have gear-boxes then they should be OK.

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IDFIMH

there were not many punters out, so a bit quite (for a friday) last night. the HC lads must have been busy dishing out the abuse, as i saw loads of other PH company drivers blatently touting on derrys roundabout last night right on the HC feeder rank too