Taxi Driver Online

Bath Taxi Drivers Banned From Using Sat Navs



New licence conditions being introduced by the Council for taxis in Bath and North East Somerset will ban drivers from using satellite navigation.


At a Council Cabinet meeting last night, new conditions and modifications were announced for licensing taxi drivers throughout the area.

These added new rules such as vehicles must be under five years old when they are registered as a taxi and that drivers when applying must take part in a Bath & North East Somerset Council Drivers Assessment Course.

The new condition ‘Satellite or GPS Navigation systems are prohibited whilst on hire or available for hire within the boundaries of Bath & North East Somerset Council’ applies to both hackney carriages and private hire vehicles.

Cllr David Dixon, Deputy Leader of the Council, said: “It is not unreasonable to expect that a professional licensed driver should be able to have a sound knowledge of the area in which they are licensed.

“Satellite Navigation systems do not always provide the most appropriate route and are unable to take account of local transient conditions that a professional driver should be aware of.

“However it is not unreasonable for a driver that is required to undertake a journey which ends or starts outside of the licensed area to be able to use a navigation system for an unfamiliar area.

“On a recent multi agency taxi check undertaken in BANES 100% of existing taxis already using satellite navigation systems were found by VOSA inspectors to be compromising the drivers view of the road by being installed within the swept area of the windscreen.

“The systems were required to be removed by VOSA immediately as they were considered to be in contravention of construction and use regulations.”

source: http://www.nowbath.co.uk/news/bath-taxi ... avs-53308/

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

Having seen the size of some of the data systems used by companies it's a wonder they're allowed as well

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

Does that mean that drivers will not be able to have fixed to their windscreen until needed? Or do they just have to have them turned off?
I always have mine turned on because it is also my bluetooth for my phone and I also use it to calculate distances for some jobs so that the customer can be given a realistic price. It also means that if a customer asks to be taken to somewhere unfamiliar, I am ready to go.

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Grandad,

and what about Sat navs built into vehicles ? does that mean that if a vehicle has built in sat nav it will fail a compliance test ?

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

Clearly some people have not read what was said or they don't understand it

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

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http://wingsoverscotland.com/ http://www.newsnetscotland.com/

The point I was trying to make but was a bit rushed is that many vehicles are pre fitted with sat nav so how do you police it other than by policing that the vehicles are not equipped which raises the point I made

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

Complaints from passengers, other drivers etc.
When enough complaints are received about a particular driver, a test purchase could be made to see if the device is being used.

Or it could just not be enforced because it's too much bother, like so many other rules.

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http://wingsoverscotland.com/ http://www.newsnetscotland.com/

So are they going to ban streetmaps as well for those rare occasions when a professional driver doesn't know the address ?

Mine does, I can set it to the shortest or fastest route and it's always correct. Minor adjustments using knowledge to avoid jams, roadworks etc.

Can't see the difference between using a paper map or sat-nav, they do the same thing just ones more modern and convenient. Next they'll get rid of data sytems as a professional taxi dispatcher should have a sound knowledge in using pen, paper and microphone

Maybe you can enlighten us then.

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Grandad,

They never said you couldn't have it, they never said you couldn't use it to give fare charges either, but and I agree with them, they did say "“It is not unreasonable to expect that a professional licensed driver should be able to have a sound knowledge of the area in which they are licensed."

If you haven't got a passenger on board then they'll never know if you use it to find an address you're not familiar with. I have a built in sat nav system and it's sometimes used to locate house numbers in the dark when I'm picking up customers. I've used it once for out of area work because the customer didn't know where they were going either.

Perhaps some 'professionals' would prefer it if the job was made so that a monkey do it

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

Madness.

This is why the Law Commission are going to have standards which cannot be changed for PH, and will be made harder to change for HC.

If a bloke wants to use his sat nav he should.

Many data units have sat nav, are they going to be banned?

What happens if a punter gets in for an out of town job and gives the post code of where they want to go?

Does the driver not put it in then but wait till they are outside the boundary?

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IDFIMH

I'm sure the captain of the Flight from Heathrow to New york knows exactly where he's going and how to get there as well....but I'm not sure it would be good idea to ban him from using his flight compass and GPS positioning system just because someone didn't like it much.

They said it was PROHIBITED whilst on hire or available for hire within the boundaries of bath & North East Somerset.
What is the definition of PROHIBITED?

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Grandad,

It's not, you can't have one you just can't use it locally, but, you should't need to.

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!