Taxi Driver Online

Hi guys, new to the board.

I am just starting out as a private hire driver having left a job of 8 years. I was on £30k p.a. and had been promised big things in the future, however I got to the point where my life was becoming a complete misery and I dreaded every day. I know that taxi driving won't be easy but I will be glad to get away from an office environment and having to work under others who don't seem to have a clue on how to run a company. I am not expecting to make huge money but I hope for £20k+ in my first year. I assume that this is a realistic target?

I will be using a hire purchase car (Vauxhall Insignia) as my taxi. I am 12 months in to a 60 month finance deal. I would have to find the papers but I have a feeling that I signed to say that the vehicle would not be used for hire or reward. Therefore does anyone see a problem with this providing that I keep my payments up? Obviously I appreciate that it will void any warranty, GAP cover and chance of voluntary termination (due to the mileage). I pay a monthly fee towards servicing so I worry in case Vauxhall were to mention this to the finance company, does anyone think that this would be likely or have any previous experience of this? Would it be safer to go with a local garage for the servicing? After all the car won't be worth much after a few years with 250k+ miles on the clock.

Another question on the warranty, what is the norm for taxis? Manufacturer recommends a service every 20k miles or yearly (whichever comes first) however as you would likely be doing 40k+ miles per year what would you usually do? Service every 20k miles which could be every 5 or 6 months?

As a private hire driver, if I wished to take my own bookings from friends/family would it be as simple as paying for an operators licence to run alongside my private hire licence or would I have to pay for additional insurances etc.?

Regarding earnings how does it usually work? Do you bank your own earnings and then set up a direct debit to pay your settle etc.?

Finally your accounts...do drivers tend to do their own or employ somebody else? I have found a couple of online templates which are fairly cheap and therefore I am considering trying one of them.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers,
Col

First of all forget the £20K, it all depends which part of the country you are in.

Cancel your service agreement with Vauxhall, no doubt they'll be taking your pants down with the agreement.

Your fekking MAD coming into this industry its populated by CRETINS who are gutless snot gobblers, its extremely dangerous and ALL PH proprietors are stinking crooked scum give Vauxhall back their pile of sh!t go and get a PAYE job NOW!!

This industry works more hours for less money than any other. suffers more assaults and murders than any other ffs plug yer brain in DONT DO IT!!

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All posts by this contributor are made in a strictly personal capacity

I AM PROUD TO BE A CITIZEN NOBODY'S SUBJECT http://www.republic.org.u

F88K EM ALL WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND

BOOZE BOOZE BOOZE

Proof (as if needed) that care in the community does NOT work

last time terry was a cabbie the horse bolted

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

hahaha that good eh?!

any sensible responses would be appreciated.

I have a Siggy.

I service it every 15k. I use a local guy because main dealer charges are are quite high for the frequency that I am getting it done. Also, my local guy lets me have the car back to earn money to him, which is often useful! Add to that the fact that if I have a problem that keeps me off the road, he will nearly always drop everything to get me back on the road. It helps that 1) I never, ever query his bill. 2) He gets three other family cars which he can deal with at times that he sees fit with absolutely no pressure.

Ignore TT, every village has one.

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IDFIMH

I give the same advice to all stupid enough to enter this industry and many have ignored it and LEARNT THE HARD WAY AS IT APPEARS WILL YOU BANKRUPTCY DIVORCE REPOSSESSION ASSAULT AND BATTERINGS AWAIT YOU AND IF YER REALLY UNLUCKY YER GET MURDERED

SUSSEX WORKS IN BRIGHTON WHICH SUNSHINE IS AN EXCEPTION TO THE RULE AS WOULD BE BEING HACK IN LONDON BOTH WORTH DOING ELSEWHERE ITS GENERALLY SH!T

ANYWAY I WISH YOU LUCK WHATEVER YOU DO

_________________
All posts by this contributor are made in a strictly personal capacity

I AM PROUD TO BE A CITIZEN NOBODY'S SUBJECT http://www.republic.org.u

F88K EM ALL WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND

BOOZE BOOZE BOOZE

Just think about the expenses before hand.

You have finance on a car already how much are you paying a month?
Get some insurance quotes for it expect to pay 3/4k for your first year
How much is your settle going to be?

Probably be all add up to around £240-300 a week before you put any fuel in. ( lots of hours) to pay that off before you earn anything. But if you don't mind doing the hours do it.

Wot matty said, weekly costs of £300 is a nice round figure to budget for.

So......if you worked a standard 40 hour week you need to earn £588 to get minimum wage (40x£7.20+£300) which breaks down to an average 'meter take' of £14.70 per hour. If you're in a busy area with lots of work good, if not you'll probably be better off in any other job for minimum wage (plus pension, paid holidays, paid sick leave etc.).

Of course once you've worked 20 hours to pay off the £300 expenses everything after that is profit, at your average hourly 'meter take'. So the more hours you work the more you'll earn.

Not forgetting that in a few years time the NMW is going up to £9ph, that takes your average hourly take to £16.50 over a 40 hour week. I doubt fares will rise accordingly in that space of time. If you cant achieve min wage now you certainly wont in a couple of years !

People seem to think that when the minimum wage is £9 it's going to be happy days are here again there are a couple of things that spoil this scenario employment agencies and zero hour contracts which are not going to go away which really screw the working poor.

Thanks for the advice guys.

I work in a town which I know pretty well as I have grown up here and lived here for 26 years. I believe that there is enough work out there to make a living. The local taxi company use a system which is automated so it offers the job to the nearest driver and they can accept or refuse it which I guess is the fairest way of doing it.

Regarding my costs:
- Car on finance is £289 per month
- Weekly settle is £60
- Insurance quotes currently coming in between £2-2.8k first year (I'm told this is less because I'm not in a city)

Therefore using the higher insurance quote I estimate that my costs would be about £180 per week before fuel.
Obviously there's the regular maintenance and other fees/taxes to take in to account also.

People say about for the hours worked it works out less than minimum wage...well this depends on whether you class the sitting round reading the newspaper for a few hours a day while waiting for fares as working hours. Ok it can't be fun and it must drive you mad, time must drag etc. but in fairness these other jobs which you are comparing with which pay minimum wage would generally be working flat out all day long.

Whether true or not I have spoken to a local private hire driver who I was put in contact with through a friend and he tells me that he generally works evenings only on Thursday, Friday and Saturday (think it was about 10 hours each night, something like 4pm-10pm and 12am-4am) and then one or two nights during the week depending on whether he can be bothered. He reckons he easily makes £30k pa after costs. I do struggle to believe this, maybe if you were a hackney driver but we'll see. At the end of the day I can always try it out for a couple of years and if it's not paying the bills then maybe I will try something else. I had looked in to owner driver courier work but these guys seem to have similar gripes to taxi drivers. I thought taxi driving seemed the best of the two.

IMHO 90% of car (taxi/PH) owners pay out the costs, take the risks but simply offer themselves up for slaughter by joining a base and hoping for a job, in my opinion that isnt "starting a business", its the road to nowhere, why not advertise, get contracts, be your own man, why payout £10K to be back of a queue for a £1 job?....if you have a hack or a PH with ops licence you can take a job yourself, why pay base rents then pay again by getting your account work creamed off before you get paid?...

go for it

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

that's essence of all potential drivers asking for advice. they're asking, getting answers, advice (better or worse) but!!! they've made decision alredy and it doesn't matter what kind of answer we'll give them... just saying

There is that but it just gets on your nerves in the end waiting around, but i consider the time i leave my house to the time i come home working why wouldn't i? if you worked in a corner shop and it wasn't busy and you was sitting behind the till reading a paper waiting for a customer would you consider that not working? .. . To be honest driving knakkeres me more than any other job i have done! i come home mentally tired and you don't quite feel in the room sometimes. Your just sat there looking at the telly but not really taking it in.. its odd feeling. maybe thaats just me However i quite like the job but i don't have much outgoing like you will have with settle/finance etc plus am a hackney.