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The Casey Column
By
Wayne Casey
The views expressed in this column may not be those of the National Taxi Association
Zero Tolerance?
This week I was contacted by a news reporter from Essex, the lady sounded nice and she wanted my comments about a disgraceful attack on some poor driver who got into an argument with a customer over a £5 cab fare.
The reporter told me “The fare was perfectly correct, but the driver was assaulted, his clothes were ripped and the car keys were damaged. He’s too intimidated to be named or pictured, but we’ve spoken to the owner of the firm. One man has been arrested on suspicion of assault and criminal damage.”
In responding to her subsequent email, I reviewed a few attacks (or reports of attacks and subsequent sentencing) from the past month. These included drivers being racially abused, drivers threatened (and stabbed) with knives and bats, smashed cab windows, broken jaws. In other words, just another normal month in the UK’s cab trade.
I then came across a well-known phrase very often used by the likes of the NHS and local authorities – the phrase is ‘zero tolerance’.
One council proudly proclaimed; “The policy is to protect staff from unreasonable customer behaviour which could hinder the handling of a customer’s complaint or request. It also reminds customers that the council has a zero tolerance to unreasonable or vexatious behaviour.”
Unreasonable behaviour is behaviour or language, whether face to face, by telephone, social media or written that may cause staff to feel intimidated, threatened or abused.
Examples may include:
• Threats
• verbal abuse
• racist and sexist language
• derogatory remarks
• offensive language
• rudeness
• making inflammatory statements
• raising unsubstantiated allegations
I would normally write the following phrase “the thought occurs”, however, it doesn’t, because I’ve felt for some considerable period of time that licensed drivers are treated in quite a horrific manner not only by a good number of customers, but almost similarly by licensing authorities. The driver is very often presumed guilty and must prove innocence, as opposed to the generally accepted norm of innocent until proven guilty.
As I mentioned last month the weight of evidence provided by the taxi leaks website of unscrupulous goings on with touting and illegal plying for hire by minicabs, evidence that is often filmed and usually photographed.
Yet this evidence is treated with contempt by authorities who seemingly wish to turn a blind eye – the attitude seems to be one of “the trade would see that wouldn’t they”.
Rather more absurdly, if an allegation is made against a driver, even through one solitary phone call, authorities appear to go to all manner of lengths to ensure the driver is brought to book for the allegation.
If the taxi industry were to adopt the same zero tolerance policies than almost all councils have adopted – we would ultimately find ourselves at odds with many local authorities. You see, some local authorities appear to believe cab drivers should accept all fares – and if you don’t accept every fare they come up with the following statement;
"National legislation states that it is a criminal offence to refuse to carry a passenger unless they have an infectious disease, have an animal with them (except if it is a service or assistance animal) or if someone is deceased.”
I suppose this particular council has never heard of risk assessment – indeed, I suppose they have never heard of the Health & Safety Executive either because the HSE recommend a driver “Refuse a job if you feel unsafe.”
Indeed, I wonder if this same council would seriously expect its drivers to accept hires from criminals who have been jailed for robbing cab drivers, ironically a duo were jailed in this particular place hours after the council statement for robbing a cab driver.
Indeed, I wonder if this council actually knows the law, after all, the Town Police clauses act 1847 states in section 53;
“Penalty on driver for refusing to drive
A driver of a hackney carriage standing at any of the stands for hackney carriages appointed by the commissioners, or in any street, who refuses or neglects, without reasonable excuse, to drive such carriage to any place within the prescribed distance, or the distance to be appointed by any byelaw of the commissioners, not exceeding the prescribed distance to which he is directed to drive by the person hiring or wishing to hire such carriage, shall for every such offence be liable to a penalty not exceeding [level 2 on the standard scale].”
They should note the term “without reasonable excuse” then consider why back in 1847 the nice folk who drafted the act thought a cab driver would need a ‘reasonable excuse’ in order to refuse a hire. Maybe, just maybe, the drafters thought from time to time unsavoury passengers might approach the cabman and want to be taken somewhere when they didn’t have any money?
Maybe the Victorians operated a zero tolerance policy, maybe they didn’t feel it was acceptable to threaten, verbally abuse, use racist and sexist language, use derogatory remarks, use offensive language, be rude, make inflammatory statements or raise unsubstantiated allegations against cab drivers.
Of course, the type of behaviour listed by local authority zero tolerance policies is as unacceptable towards a council employee as it is towards a cab driver. It is always interesting to note that council workers when dealing with the wider public in council buildings sit behind a desk, usually 6 feet away from the public, speak from behind a 2 inch thick glass screen, there is council security and the added bonus of CCTV.
This is entirely different to the cab driver who must very often finance their own security, which is then scrutinised by the local authority. The authority, depending upon what side of the bed they got out, may then believe the likes of ‘big brother watch’ and Daily Mail readers who appear to believe CCTV is fine everywhere, on buses, on trains, on planes, in stations, in airports, in ferry terminals and on every High Street – but see CCTV in taxis as going beyond the pale*.
Indeed, these same local authorities similarly appear to believe they should be permitted access to CCTV images and to even determine what type of system should be installed – this is sadly in breach of the Data Protection Act 1998 that places such duty on the data controller.
*“Beyond the Pale” – a somewhat arrogant term used by English settlers in Ireland suggesting anything beyond English jurisdiction was uncivilized.
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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin
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