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 Post subject: Licensing threats !!
PostPosted: Thu Mar 05, 2020 8:28 pm 
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A couple of Hackney drivers here in our beloved Babergh district, have recently been reprimanded by the local LA for refusing customers.
In both cases the taxis had up and coming bookings that they would have been late for had they taken the jobs on, and at least one of these jobs was cross boundary, so the driver had every right to refuse.
Babergh LA for their part, have no interest in the mitigating circumstances, instead just threatening to revoke licenses.

It really is beginning to feel as though we have a right bunch of cowboys running our licensing dept!

Thoughts?


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 Post subject: Re: Licensing threats !!
PostPosted: Thu Mar 05, 2020 8:37 pm 
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Quote:
Thoughts?

Make a formal complaint to the council, it will drive them mad.

https://www.babergh.gov.uk/the-council/ ... omplaints/

Legally any driver can refuse a job going out of district.

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 Post subject: Re: Licensing threats !!
PostPosted: Thu Mar 05, 2020 9:15 pm 
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You say at least one of the jobs was cross boundary, that’s fair enough, but any driver refusing a job for no good reason deserves all they get in my opinion.


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 Post subject: Re: Licensing threats !!
PostPosted: Thu Mar 05, 2020 9:28 pm 
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Sudbury wrote:
A couple of Hackney drivers here in our beloved Babergh district, have recently been reprimanded by the local LA for refusing customers.

Fair enough with regard to the out-of-area job, but why precisely was a complaint lodged about the local run, and by who?

Happens here very occasionally, but it's usually a decent job, so although strictly speaking it's a breach of the rules, the punter is just sent to another car, and no one's that bothered.

Could just about see it as a fake excuse to refuse a short run here, though, in which case another driver might complain.


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 Post subject: Re: Licensing threats !!
PostPosted: Fri Mar 06, 2020 4:56 pm 
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We had similar here a few years back. Drivers were told that if they are on the rank they must be available for immediate hire. If they have a booking coming up they must leave the rank. I argued that if my booking is for in say 115 minutes then I am still available for a local job off the rank. Unfortunately I never got a definitive answer.

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 Post subject: Re: Licensing threats !!
PostPosted: Fri Mar 06, 2020 5:28 pm 
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grandad wrote:
We had similar here a few years back. Drivers were told that if they are on the rank they must be available for immediate hire. If they have a booking coming up they must leave the rank. I argued that if my booking is for in say 115 minutes then I am still available for a local job off the rank. Unfortunately I never got a definitive answer.

It's a tricky one, and to be honest I'm not entirely sure if the out-of-area rule here applies to just our East Fife zone, or to the whole Fife Council area :?

Would find out, but reason I've never asked is because it's largely academic as regards sitting on the rank. Even a run to the far reaches of the East zone would take an hour there and back, and a couple of hours as regards Fife as a whole. :shock:

So does that mean that I shouldn't sit on the rank if I have a booking within an hour, because if I get a 20-mile run off the rank I'd have to refuse it, thus a breach of licensing conditions?

No - in reality the vast majority of runs will take ten minutes maximum, and the chances of getting one that would take an hour are probably less than one per cent.

So in practice drivers take a more common sense approach, which is probably why Grandad's council couldn't provide a concrete answer - it would look incredibly pedantic and totally lacking in common sense.

On the other hand, that's why as an independent I don't normally take bookings unless it's a decent run - I'd spend too much time working my way up the rank, but would have to pull off in case I got a run that took a bit more than five minutes [-(

And although we're all normally gagging for the £30 runs, if you're an independent taking bookings for short runs then you get into a scenario on the ranks when you're at or near the front and hoping it *won't* be a £40 run :x

On the other hand, if the rule was strictly enforced then it might work out for me, because then the office cars wouldn't be able to sit on the ranks at all, because normally they'd get a job off the radio before they had time to do a one-hour rank hire :-k

But it's more a case of common sense prevailing. And on the rare occasion it does happen here then if the driver passes a job back then it's going to be a better than average one, so I'm not going to be complaining.


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 Post subject: Re: Licensing threats !!
PostPosted: Fri Mar 06, 2020 8:24 pm 
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Quote:
It's a tricky one, and to be honest I'm not entirely sure if the out-of-area rule here applies to just our East Fife zone, or to the whole Fife Council area :?

I would take the view that it's for the whole licensing district, rather than your zone.

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 Post subject: Re: Licensing threats !!
PostPosted: Fri Mar 06, 2020 9:02 pm 
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Sussex wrote:
Quote:
It's a tricky one, and to be honest I'm not entirely sure if the out-of-area rule here applies to just our East Fife zone, or to the whole Fife Council area :?

I would take the view that it's for the whole licensing district, rather than your zone.

The condition simply refers to the 'licensing area', so a case could easily be made to construe it either way, in my opinion:

Fife Council licence conditions wrote:
Subject to condition 8 below the driver of the taxi/private hire car shall not refuse to drive a passenger to any place within the licensing area.


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 Post subject: Re: Licensing threats !!
PostPosted: Sat Mar 07, 2020 2:07 pm 
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Read the 1847 act on attending a booking promptly. It’s the law.

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 Post subject: Re: Licensing threats !!
PostPosted: Sat Mar 07, 2020 4:38 pm 
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Sussex wrote:
Quote:
Thoughts?

Make a formal complaint to the council, it will drive them mad.

https://www.babergh.gov.uk/the-council/ ... omplaints/

Legally any driver can refuse a job going out of district.


don't think that is right my understanding is if you are on the rank you must take the job wherever it is going as you are available for hire

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 Post subject: Re: Licensing threats !!
PostPosted: Sat Mar 07, 2020 6:52 pm 
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edders23 wrote:
Sussex wrote:
Quote:
Thoughts?

Make a formal complaint to the council, it will drive them mad.

https://www.babergh.gov.uk/the-council/ ... omplaints/

Legally any driver can refuse a job going out of district.


don't think that is right my understanding is if you are on the rank you must take the job wherever it is going as you are available for hire

You can refuse a job from the rank if it is going out of district. expanding on what you say, if a driver is on the rank in say Kent and a punter comes up and asks to go to Liverpool you are saying that the driver must do that job. What if that driver has already done a 12 hour shift? Are you saying that he must then go to Liverpool?

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 Post subject: Re: Licensing threats !!
PostPosted: Sat Mar 07, 2020 7:48 pm 
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grandad wrote:
edders23 wrote:
Sussex wrote:
Quote:
Thoughts?

Make a formal complaint to the council, it will drive them mad.

https://www.babergh.gov.uk/the-council/ ... omplaints/

Legally any driver can refuse a job going out of district.


don't think that is right my understanding is if you are on the rank you must take the job wherever it is going as you are available for hire

You can refuse a job from the rank if it is going out of district. expanding on what you say, if a driver is on the rank in say Kent and a punter comes up and asks to go to Liverpool you are saying that the driver must do that job. What if that driver has already done a 12 hour shift? Are you saying that he must then go to Liverpool?



according to our LO YES

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 Post subject: Re: Licensing threats !!
PostPosted: Sat Mar 07, 2020 8:03 pm 
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Quote:
according to our LO YES

But you have nutty LOs in a nutty council.

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 Post subject: Re: Licensing threats !!
PostPosted: Sun Mar 08, 2020 1:48 am 
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Thanks for all your input, it's been a big help


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 Post subject: Re: Licensing threats !!
PostPosted: Sun Mar 08, 2020 1:30 pm 
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x-ray wrote:
You say at least one of the jobs was cross boundary, that’s fair enough, but any driver refusing a job for no good reason deserves all they get in my opinion.


surely that would be a bigger job?..

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