Taxi Driver Online

The huge numbers of 'defective' cabs on Liverpool's streets

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/li ... s-15382592

Hundreds of drivers were handed notices between May and scores arrested for drug driving

Taxi checks during a six-month operation to improve road safety revealed a 40 per cent of cabs had defective or suspension notices issued, new figures show.

A massive 586 tickets were issued for defective cabs and the pilot scheme resulted in 40 drivers being arrested for drug-taking offences, six of them for alcohol, in the sting that ran between May and November.

Other figures show that 192 cabbies were suspended from working and 450 tickets issued for parking in designated taxi ranks, Merseyside Police and Liverpool Council said.

While big - these numbers do actually show an improvement in the amount of cab drivers dealt with for these issues.

A similar operation took place between January and March, this year, which led to 768 cabs being stopped in THAT operation.

Then, it meant 57 per cent of cabs were defective with ten drivers arrested in Merseyside for drink or drug driving.

Roads Policing Sergeant Martin Mayne, of Merseyside Police, said: “These [latest] figures mean around 40 per cent of taxis have been subject to either defect notices or suspensions.

"The response from the 60 per cent of taxi drivers who keep well-maintained taxis has been very positive.

"Many of them share our aim, to ensure people using taxis in our area can do so safe in the knowledge that the vehicle they are in is safe, and that the driver is responsible.

"Those drivers who put the safety of passengers, pedestrians and other road users at serious risk by drinking or taking drugs before getting behind the wheel will not be tolerated by Merseyside Police or licencing officers.

"Our roadside stop checks and other enforcement activity will continue, and our hope is that all drivers join the majority of their colleagues and do the right thing.

"If you do not get your vehicle checked and any necessary repairs made, you run the risk of your vehicle being taken off the road.

"Neither the police or the council are seeking to deprive people of their livelihoods for the sake of it, but the safety of the public is, as always our absolute priority and we will not hesitate to take action if we believe you are putting that at risk."

Police and council officials decided to act after two fatal collisions involving taxis, one of which was in February 2017 and involved a taxi driver being over the drug drive limit after taking cocaine.

Officers have attended a training course run by the council to learn how to inspect taxis to ensure they are safe and road legal.

Sgt Mayne added: "Most people drive responsibly and are aware of the serious consequences being under the influence of drink or drugs can have on their ability to safely navigate the roads.

"It is disappointing that there has been a recent increase in taxi drivers/private hire drivers being found to be driving whilst under the influence of drugs.

"While those caught using drugs still represent a small minority of drivers, I cannot stress enough the dangers that this presents."

Then Chair of Liverpool City Council’s licensing committee, Councillor Christine Banks, said: “We want to make sure that our taxi industry is fair, and we are determined to crack down on those drivers who are flouting the rules. Our aim is to make the playing field for all drivers as level as it can be.

“Unfortunately, there are a very small minority who breach regulations, and we are committed to taking action and in doing so, send a clear message out that it is not acceptable.

“Passengers should always ensure they only use properly licensed taxis or pre-book private hire vehicles, otherwise they are placing themselves in danger.”

Not sure the word small is appropriate.

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IDFIMH

Out of 15000 ph and Taxis

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

So the real figure is 6,000 defective vehicles then ?
(40% of 15000)

The percentage figure seems to relate to the proportion of cars *stopped*. Not sure where precisely the 40% figure comes from (there's no figure given for total stops), but the Merseyside Police press release says, regarding the previous operation:



https://www.merseyside.police.uk/news/l ... erseyside/

So whether you can use these figures to say that 57% of the total fleet was defective then, and 40% of the total fleet is defective now, is anyone's guess - it may be that they just stopped/inspected the more dodgy looking motors, so more likely to find defects.

And it's not clear precisely what the 'defects' are - could be something minor like a number plate bulb out or problems with the door stickers - who knows?

Isn't the MoT failure rate around 40%? So you could say 40% of private cars on the road are 'defective'

As every one will have seen on there travels that police cars are also on the roads with defects,headlight out,brake light out or rear light out.

Unless defects are itemised you cannot say that vehicles(private hire or taxis) are in a dangerous condition,many would have been pulled for minor defects such as above.

768 vehicles represents just over 5 percent of the fleet based on Trevors figures with 57 percent defective that means that 2.9 percent of the fleet were found to be defective

BUT as I have said many times minor things which are in no way a safety issue can go wrong on a car and if you are checked at the wrong time before you have identified and corrected the fault you are deemed a fail

So is that 2.9 percent of Murkyside vehicles dangerous or 2.8 percent with a minor fault and 0.1 percent actually dangerous

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Taxis Are Public Transport too

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The percentage figures relate to cars *stopped*, so not plausible to assume that the 57% figure last time round (40% now) applies to the whole fleet.

By the same token, you can't assume that the defective cars stopped are the only defective ones in the whole fleet

And it's not clear what fleet we're talking about here. Trevor presumably using the whole of Merseyside for the 15,000 figure, but the article only mentions Liverpool City Council, so it's not clear if the vehicles from the other Merseyside areas were included in operation.

So the only definite conclusion that can be drawn is that of the vehicles *stopped* in the most recent operation 40% were either suspended or issued with a defect notice, however 'defect' is defined precisely.

(According to the latest DfT stats the HC/PH total for the metropolitan county of Merseyside is around 11,000, but whether it's that, or 15,000, or the 3,500 total licensed by Liverpool itself, you can't draw conclusions about the whole fleet from those *stopped*.)

The annual test failure rates (from memory) are something like:

private cars 38%;

light vans 43%, most of which are 4 years old and are undergoing their first annual test;

heavy goods vehicles over 3.5T 18%

minibuses: 26%;

big buses and coaches 8%.

Biggest failure items for buses and lorries is usually headlamp aim and bulbs not working.

The DVLA haven't published figures for taxi/ph failures as they are not usually tested by DVSA stations and do not always get recognised by their system as they are in effect exempt from annual testing!

Not sure if the MoT system recognises a taxi/PH as such. Don't know if it's the same in all areas (with compliance certificates, or whatever) but as far as I'm aware the MoT system would just regard the likes of my (saloon) taxi as a bog standard private car.

To help clarify - Merseyside is made up of six licencing authorities (I think). Wirral, Liverpool, Sefton, Knowsley, St.Helens and, I believe, Halton. Because of the cross border hiring issue the councils are working with the police to have a specially trained unit made up of officers from all the areas. As you know, the police have the power to stop, to breathalise and have a drug testing kit. The rectification notices are a bit hit and miss at the moment because the different areas have different conditions attached to their vehicles i.e. you must have a fire extinguisher in your vehicle in Liverpool, but not in Sefton, so the police are making mistakes by issuing a rectification notice to a Sefton vehicle for not having a fire extinguisher. This will all sort itself out as the councils are trying to bring the licencing conditions on the vehicles to a more unified standard.
I saw a Sefton ph vehicle with a plate no. 7014. As to the true number of licenced vehicles in the 6 boroughs, I can only guess, but I would not be surprised if it was between 14 and 20,000 including hackneys.

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

Getting old, my memory's failing... here's the DVSA test failure data for vehicles up to 7.5t.
Financial year Class Tests Pass after rectification at MOT test station Fails Initial fail rate Final fail rate
2016 to 2017 Classes 1 & 2: Motorcycles 1,011,080 75,240 103,73 17.70% 10.30%
2016 to 2017 Classes 3 & 4: Cars, vans and passenger vehicles with up to 12 seats 28,684,053 2,451,012 7,699,812 35.40% 26.80%
2016 to 2017 Class 5: Private passenger vehicles with more than 12 seats 47,853 3,175 11,997 31.70% 25.10%
2016 to 2017 Class 7: Goods vehicles between 3,000 and 3,500 kg gross vehicle weight 680,461 64,691 244,496 45.40% 35.90%
2016 to 2017 Total 30,42 3,447 2,594,118 8,060,039 35.00% 26.50%

sorry it didn't copy across too well from the gov website.

The fail rate for large buses and coaches was about 12%. Large goods vehicles 18%. The small goods vehicle initial failure rate is a worrying 45.4%

They still don't list taxis/ph separately, but if you look at the car initial fail rate of 35.4%, the Liverpool taxi fail rate would seem to be a bit higher than that.

Ah, thanks for that, interesting to clarify some of these things, in particular the various different rule books and how the 'defect' figures may be misleading because of that.

As for the number of vehicles, the DfT don't include Halton under Merseyside, but there's only 400 total vehicles in Halton, so that doesn't' explain the discrepancy.

I'll post the DfT figures for each Merseyside council later, but they only come to around 11,000 total HCs/PHs at 31 March 2018.

My two front tyres are nearing the limit, well, my limit anyway which is 3mm. The n/s one has only 1.5 mm on the outer edge. I have had the tracking corrected. I am having winter tyres fitted alround Tomorrow. Who should turn up on the ranks yesterday but our friendly enforcement officer checking vehicles. ( more than happy to see them out and about ) he looks at my tyre and was about to say something when I informed him there was 3mm across the central 75% and visible tread on the remainder and I shall have them changed before the weekend anyway. He just smiled and said “ok” I have never had a problem with spot checks and only wish they did more.
The last big operation they had with VOSA was a couple of years ago on a race day! The funniest thing to happen was one of the rental cars was stopped and took off the road due to a baldy tyre, the owner sent out his recovery truck to collect it and VOSA went over it and took it off the road due to, yes, you guessed it, a BALDY tyre.

DfT figures are not always correct or up-to-date and then take into account vehicles from outside of Merseyside.

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!