Taxi Driver Online

Taxi drivers under fire for poor state of vehicles



Taxi drivers in North-East Fife have been condemned for putting passengers at risk.

Nineteen taxis were pulled off the road after serious defects were found during annual inspection tests by Fife Council officers.

One car, which had a mileage of over 182,000, had a speedometer which was clearly not working.

Another had a broken exhaust system and a kinked brake pipe, while a third was found to have a catalogue of defects including a flat spare wheel, a torn wiper blade, a broken bolt on the sub frame, a broken coil spring and problems with the brake pedal.

The operators now face being pulled in front of shocked councillors who have warned they could have their licences suspended.

An astonishing 11% of the 172 taxis tested failed, although most passed a retest. The result is slightly better than last year when 13.5% of taxis failed.

This is in direct contrast to the results in the Levenmouth area where 99% of the 98 taxis tested passed first time and the only failure passed a retest.

In West Fife, 94% of the 81 tested passed first time.

While Levenmouth’s taxi operators have been congratulated for their excellent results, members of the council’s regulation and licensing committee said they were appalled by the situation in the north of the region.

Chairman Bob Young told members: “The failures are coming from one area and that’s very upsetting in a lot of ways because I thought we had a good grip of it. We really need to do something.”

St Andrews councillor Dorothea Morrison said local members had previously warned taxi operators about the condition of their vehicles.

“About four or five years ago the results coming from East Fife were so bad we had a meeting with operators in St Andrews and they were told at that time in no uncertain terms to pull their socks up,” she said.

She added: “We get report after report about excellent results from Levenmouth and the operators there really should be congratulated.

“They are setting standards, yet St Andrews is supposed to be an affluent area and has terrible results.”

Councillor Mike Rumney said the North-East Fife results were shocking.

“Every time we get inspection reports from East Fife they are terrible,” he said. “Why can’t they make the same effort as operators from West and Central Fife where we always see really good results?”

Mr Rumney moved that all the operators who failed the test be brought before the committee to face possible suspension.

The five West Fife operators who failed will also be called in to the specially convened meeting to deal with the situation.

Mr Rumney added: “I have to say, I’m disappointed in some of the names appearing on the West Fife list because they have appeared before this committee time after time.”

Regarding the East Fife results the council’s fleet services manager Tom Henderson said: “Although there has been a slight increase in the first-time pass rate from last year’s result, it is still very disappointing that 19 vehicles failed the test, especially as some of these operators have previously been brought to the committee’s attention. As last year, I would suggest that strong sanctions should be taken.”

However, Mr Henderson hailed the Levenmouth and West Fife results, stating: “I am delighted to inform the committee that there has been a slight increase in the first time pass rate from last year’s results and the operators should yet again be congratulated for their high standards of maintenance.”

source: http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/local/ ... es-1.94680

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

Fact is, some owners don't drive their vehicles. And as long as the cash cow continues to put the rental through the door, vehicle problems don't exist.

Recession bites, the temptation is for owners to divert rental cash from financing and maintaining the vehicle to propping up their diminishing lifestyle.

Drivers faced with owners who behave like this should have direct access to their own vehicle. They shouldn't have to suffer defects they wouldn't tolerate in their own vehicle.

And, three strikes and you're out. Three faults which place customers or other road users at risk and the operator's licence should be revoked, not suspended. If you're not up to the mark as an an operator, or not financially fit to be one, then you shouldn't have a licence.

That's no more than the customer and the public deserves.

And that's quality control.

_________________
Skull, "You are a police inspector, aren't you?"
Cab Inspector Smith, "Yes."
Skull, "So, are you going to tell Mr Taylor what his rights are?"
Smith, "And ... What rights?"

Is Fife deregulated?

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

Do they have any age limits?? starting or ending

Was this introduced???
http://www.fifetoday.co.uk/news/local-h ... s-1-164803

They are very naughty boys... You would think that after making all that money, they would spend some of it on maintaining their taxis.

Download Minute of Regulation and Licensing Committee on 10 May 2011 (Subject to approval by Fife Council on 6 October 2011)

http://www.fife.gov.uk/news/index.cfm?f ... 1C57A3A1BF

It looks like the council will have another late night with these new fails, like they had with these ones

Not sure;

Peter Jobson, chair of North East Fife Taxi Association, commented: "We just cannot get a sensible answer at all.


"How can a London taxi with 500,000 miles on the clock be safer than a top of the range luxury car with less than 100,000 miles?


"The same applies to buses. They are making such a song and dance about taxis but we have 20-25 year old buses running around. If we are going to have an eight year rule, then let's have it across the board."

But if it was - that guy's gonna be way embarrassed

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

A car without a working speedo is "dangerous" How so?

Until this year it wasn't a MOT requirement.

My final metrocab didn't have one for it's last five years. (10 council tests, 5 MOT's)

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Former taxi driver

I think the danger was the rope with knots the driver used to find out his speed

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

Down here in the deep south (east) we have this marvellous new invention known as satnav...

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Former taxi driver

I think its zoned. Some yes, some no.

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IDFIMH

I see - so now you bring hocus pocus mumbo jimbo into it

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

Fife is not deregulated the limit for east fife is set at 149 taxi with the rest being private hires. Most of the cars in the area are owner drivers I'd say around 80% are owner drivers although its all under the one licensing authority there's quite a lot of unfairness that doesn't get mentioned the fact that some of the other testing stations have testers who are not even mot trained? Some one said to me a few months back if we swapped testers with another fife station we'd have a great test result which I think may be true....

Thanks for the info

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

Amazing the amount of intelligent and knowledgeable people on this thread who seem to think an inspection pass rate of almost 90% means the local trade there is some sort of huge threat to public safety

Of course, Jasbar uses it to bang the drum against licence quotas, while Captain Cab does the opposite

I'd suggest both are wide of the mark

Anyway, I'm not sure if all local authorities compute an inspection failure %age rate like we do in Fife, and which seems to be our council's primary benchmark in terms of safety...

Or maybe they're just not that easy to find via Google. But the few I have found - some of which I've mentioned on here in the past few weeks - surely prove my point. Here's a couple I found the other day:

NW Leicestershire - the latest annual figures available demonstrate a first time pass rate of 63%, with some months down into the 50s, or as low as 41%**

https://www.nwleics.gov.uk/files/docume ... 022-23.pdf

And Manchester from 2009 - they show monthly rather than annual figures, but looks like it's in the 30%s for HCs, and 40%s for PHVs

https://www.manchester.gov.uk/egov_down ... ctions.pdf

(Note to Captain Cab - wasn't that about the time HC plates in Manchester were selling for £50k? )


**And also demonstrates that someone doesn't know how to round numbers on a spreadsheet

Tip - highlight the area you want it to apply to (in this case the column with the %age pass rate), which you can do by clicking on the top of the relevant column, or to the left of relevant row, or the top left corner of the spreadsheet to highlight the whole lot. Then select Format, then 'Cells' or similar, then 'Number', and one of the 'General' or 'Percentage' options or similar (you wouldn't choose the 'Currency', 'Date' or 'Time' option, obviously) should allow you to select the number of decimals shown. In the case of the spreadsheet above, it looks like it's just used the default scenario, so it either doesn't show a decimal at all in the case of whole numbers, or shows a long string of decimals

For a number like the %age pass rate, I'd say either one decimal point, or even no decimals at all would be appropriate, thus, for example, 78.1% or just 78%