Taxi Driver Online

http://www.route-one.net/issues/520/index.html#/4/

What's also worrying is the number of taxis issued with immediate prohibitions in the same VOSA/police check.

If they look for long enough they will find faults on Taxis ,Limos, Lorries & coaches ,it just which is being targeted that month, They have to make themselfs wanted, or the Govements knife with be out with cut backs on staff.

I've changed my views on VOSA over the years and still have mixed views on them. One thing I do agree with is for them to try to stamp out ANY form of illegal operation of vehicles for hire and reward, whether they're stretch limos, minibuses, wedding buses or taxis.

The law has always been there regarding the operation of vehicles with more that 8 seats needing to be licenced a PSVs and for their drivers to be properly licenced. Fortunately no-one has yet been killed travelling in an illegal stretch limo, but that's more by luck than anything else. I get pi$$ed off when I see Routemaster buses running on free "historic" road tax and not displaying a PSV operator's licence being used for a wedding. I had to go through a Public Inquiry to get my O licence to operate buses and pay substantial sums to do so legally, much the same as I do to run my private hire cars.

What is interesting is the change of tack by VOSA to one of trying to educate the limo operators to get them street legal rather than persecute them. In the meantime, ANY vehicle with dangerous defect shouldn't be on the roads.

BTW VOSA staff have already suffered substantial cutbacks over the last few years.

The wedding bus thing is usually limo operators branching out. The reason that they don't have a pcv disc in the window is quite simple. You just need to read the legislation. Weddings and funerals are exempt from licensing. Of course you and I both know that this is wrong and that they are "adapting" the private hire laws to suit their PCV operation. I wouldn't mind betting that most of them actually believe that they don't need to have a license.

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Grandad,

It's also the bus preservationists who are doing it as well. While I don't mind any preservationist doing a family or close friend's wedding once in a blue moon, some of them make quite a habit of doing so and undercutting legit operators by quite a large amount.