Taxi Driver Online

Spot Checks Catch Vehicles Illegally Picking up Fares




SPOT checks on private hire cars in Reading found four out of six of the ones checked were illegally trying to pick up customers from the street without first being booked.

A hackney carriage licensed by South Oxfordshire was also caught committing the same offence.

All private hire vehicles are forbidden by law to “ply for hire”, as the practice is called, and only hackney carriages licensed to ply for hire by Reading Borough Council are permitted to do so in the borough. Those licensed by other councils are not allowed to ply for hire within Reading borough.

The checks were carried out in a joint operation by licensing officers from Reading Borough Council and South and Vale (South Oxfordshire) Council on Saturday, October 18.
They were looking for any vehicles illegally plying for hire or breaching the conditions of their licences.

A total of 14 vehicles were checked: six Reading Borough Council private hire vehicles and eight South Oxfordshire District Council Hackney Carriage Vehicles.

Four Reading Borough Council private hire drivers were caught illegally plying for hire. Two were in breach of their licence conditions; one had no roof sign, another had no private hire vehicle plate.

One vehicle was suspended from use immediately under the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, Section 68 because its front and rear lights were defective.

South Oxfordshire District Council has already begun further action against the drivers and vehicles from their area that were caught committing offences, including two drivers caught not wearing an identity badges and two drivers not displaying their fare charts in the vehicle.

More joint operations between the Reading and South Oxfordshire will be undertaken in the future.

Paul Gittings, Lead Councillor for Culture, Sport and Consumer services, said:

“I’m very pleased to see Reading and South Oxfordshire officers working together to catch drivers breaking the law. Plying for hire without the appropriate licence is a serious offence. It puts the passenger at grave risk, in the same way as travelling in any uninsured vehicle does.”

source: http://www.reading.gov.uk/pressreleases ... ing-fares/

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

I bet those South oxfordshire HC's were the ones pretending to be doing PH work in another area, we have the same f@@@ers in Oxford, except these lot are from VAle of White Horse, West Oxfordshire, Worcester Etc etc.

Even when you do report them, nothing ever seems to be done as they're some one else's