Taxi Driver Online

Rise in "pointless" complaints about foreign taxi drivers in Brighton and Hove

Taxi bosses are being deluged with complaints about cabbies who cannot speak English - with many passengers refusing to ride if a foreigner is driving. Figures obtained by The Argus newspaper show the number of taxi complaints has more than doubled in the past four years.

But Andy Cheesman from the Brighton and Hove Taxi Forum insisted the majority of the grievances were “pointless lies” which were never proved. Instead, he claimed “a significant proportion” were angry passengers complaining about foreign drivers not being able to speak English.

He said: “When people have had a few beers, they can take offence if they don't think the driver can speak the language that well. “Sometimes all the foreign guys do is say a word wrong - and that causes a serious row. It's got way worse recently.”

Another cabbie, who did not wish to be named, revealed passengers regularly called to demand a British driver. He said; “We get about half a dozen calls a week from people saying they won't get in the cab if it's driven by a foreigner. “We even had a row with a rich guy in Rottingdean who said 'I don't want any n****** picking me up”.

Figures show the number of complaints made about taxi drivers soared from 226 in 2009 to 488 this year - but few of the grievances result in disciplinary action for drivers. In a six week period earlier this year, seven drivers were handed written warnings, one driver was been suspended, and one more had their license revoked.

Mr Cheesman put the rise in complaints down to the soaring number of foreign drivers in Brighton and Hove, with more than 1700 cabbies now plying their trade in the city. He said: “For many of them, English is their third or fourth language. Many are Sudanese Egyptians, for instance.

“A lot come here with competent English skills but they can't read or write. So they've become very good taxi drivers. “The problem is they sometimes don't know the quickest routes because they haven't grown up here. That's one of the reasons why people get annoyed and complain.”

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IDFIMH

Some real quality controls down in Brighton then?

No tests which require written or spoken English?

Oh yes, Level 2 Btec in English and literary.

Shows how s*** Btecs are.

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IDFIMH

We've got the same problems up here, only yesterday one lad phoned me up and said, "one of your drivers has nearly wiped me out on a roundabout". He followed him back to the rank and confronted him. The driver said, I'm not understanding roundabouts I am confused.

FFS sake who's giving them their badges??

That's how it is in this Airy Fairy modern Equality and Diversity driven world of ours these days, what right have we to deny such driver their human rights and to stop them from killing their fellow road users through them having an inequality in the use of the local lingo.

It's getting beyond a joke round here at the moment. How the hell they're getting through the licensing procedure is beyond me. They obviously can't drive.