Taxi Driver Online

This site is aimed primarily at the Hire Car trade. It is so pro-derestriction, that any post supporting continued restriction is almost immediately rubbished or its proponent is. You defend this by claiming it is other contributors who do this when the reality seems to be that the whole raison d'etre of this site is to kill restriction without regard for the financial, social or moral consequences of such action.

Fastblacks is aimed primarily at the general public with there only being a small section aimed at informing taxi drivers and a drivers' forum as a vehicle for discussion. I freely admit that my personal opinion is that numerical restriction is necessary in Edinburgh until such times as private hire vehicles are properly controlled and adequate quality safeguards are in place.

You may regard private hire as part of this trade, I do not. They operate only through a loophole in the legislation brought in around 1985 which allowed them radios and removed the need for them to return to a base if not working. In most cases they operate a second class service.
These are the opinions I hold. They are not the policy of the site, which doesn't operate any policy on such matters, other than to warn the public about the shortcomings of private hire and the consequences of the actions of some PH drivers.

The latter comments you quote were aimed at "Sussex," and I think are self-explanatory.

Alan G

You were never barred from Fastblacks for your opinions, you WERE barred for your continued abuse.

It IS a statement of fact. The reason for the document removal being the fact.

Ali, One day, you might say something sensible. Until you think it up, please consult Garry first. I might disagree with him on many things, but at least we were civil when we spoke on Christmas Eve.

all this from a guy who runs a site and posts as alan g and admin

and alan yes thats you're opinion its also you're site or had you forgoten

as for the doc in question, you must be think us all idiots!, seen two versions
p*** off, easily sorted go get it at the courts ,
its old news now, you and you're site are redundent , you even refuse to print new's as important as this!
do the trade a favoure and shrink away back to where you came from.
leave the seriouse topics to those that can stomach it

heres one alan
why dont you let us see this forgery you have
im sure sherrif horsburgh would be most interested to learn that his signature
has been put to another doc.
wouldnt you agree

a seriouse offence
to put you're mind at rest and to let you see wich is the real one
i will admit to being responsible for the one you got from jim via garry
so if its a forgery send the polis roond ma hoose teapot.

expect no such civily from me ginger.

i have not forgotten the way you and you're cohorts had utter disregard for the safety of my family.

and that you would come to regret that action.

Welcome to TDO Mr G.

The nick Kelly was hatched out of a well-known serial litigant based on Merseyside, William Atwell Kelly.

It wouldn't have been much fun using my TDO ID. I wanted a little banter with the boys before I engaged in any serious debate. The only reason I enrolled on Fastblacks was to reply to your allegation "that I spun Jacobs figures to suit my own purpose". After a little frivolity and one or two innuendoes I eventually got to where I was going. I must admit I had a little chuckle to myself watching many of your posters blow a gasket at the handful of innuendoes Mr Stu and I threw at each other, lol. However my presence certainly seemed to marginally increase the volume of debate for a short period of time.

I never get involved with the politics of local Taxi trades, especially those in London and Scotland. However, when it comes to denial of justice or reports and surveys being manipulated by their authors, then I'm afraid you will always find me on the side of what I deem to be right.

Survey reports affect the whole of the UK Taxi trade and as such are not immune from criticism just because a survey happens to be conducted in one part of the UK as opposed to another.

A Survey is the one and only method presently allowing a local authority to pursue a policy of numerical restriction. Every survey that is exposed as being flawed will hopefully leave an impression on Government that the practice of surveys needs to be defined in a wider perspective.

In your neck of the woods Jacobs got it totally wrong and what's more the way it was conducted was little short of a farce. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that the Jacobs survey will eventually be deemed factually incorrect by the courts. If that be the case then Edinburgh only has itself to blame.

I hope you guys in Edinburgh are keeping tally on the Taxi monitor reports? Just because Edinburgh had a survey it doesn't exempt them from not having to carry out regular monthly observations, according to Lord Rodger.

In respect of the recent decision in the Sheriffs court by Horsburgh, it would appear he came to the same conclusion as many other astute observers. There will of course be many other decisions that reflect Horsburgh and Liddle so it might be worth concentrating your mind on the relevant legal position regarding section 3 of the 1982 act. I would forget about surveys if I were you because the legislation in that particular section concerns a council administering their duty in respect of issuing licences. In particular it means you have six months to determine an application and failing such a determination in the required period deems the license granted. Unless of course an extension is granted because the council has showed valid cause as to why the administration could not determine the application within the allotted time frame.

As previously explained waiting on survey results is not a valid reason for an extension of time as the judiciary in both Coyle and Dundee have ably pointed out. Just in case you have forgotten, in Scotland the courts have determined that a council must be in possession of evidence of demand when the application falls on their desk. At present there is no accommodation in Scottish law for an application to be put on hold while a local authority measures demand. Unless of course you happen to be Sheriff Mackie?

Regards

JD

I have never discussed 'Kelly' with anyone, but I thought the ID was fairly obvious to anyone, as has been demonstrated by posts both on your own forum and elsewhere, so I'm not entirely sure what the problem is. And JD has since you made your post made clear on here what everyone knew anyway.

Anyway, pseudonyms are part and parcel of the forum 'scene', so if you have a problem with it then perhaps you should exercise more control over who is allowed to post? For example, a recent post on your site made by 'TAXI 1' caused a bit of confusion for Mr Taylor, but in fact the post was merely a copy of a post made on here by JD. However, this individual (TAXI 1) quite often copies and pastes posts from forum to forum, but unfortunately does not seem very good at making clear that these are not his own writings, hence the confusion. By the way, TAXI 1 is better know as Mr T, ie Trever Jones, a fleet owner from Sefton on Merseyside. That's not the same person as the Mr T who posts on your own forum either.



It depends what you mean by 'doctor'. Are you talking about the technical/IT difficulties or having the requisite legal knowledge?

There are no obvious technical/IT difficulties as far as I know, so presumably you're talking about having the legal knowledge to doctor such a document. If you're then talking about composing the document from scratch or making substantial variations to a finished document then it would be very difficult to make it look plausible without a substantial legal knowledge methinks. If you're talking about minor amendments then clearly that wouldn't be difficult.

But I still can't work out why someone would do such a thing, but if you could appraise us as to the exact nature of the two 'different outcomes' that you mention, then perhaps it would all be a bit clearer.

And since you're making a very serious allegation (misrepresenting a member of the judiciary) then I assume you've done something about it formally?




No, that was Sheriff Mackie

That was a joke, by the way

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

So you mean the opposite of what normally goes on in the trade up and down the country? The amount of 'rubbishing' that goes on on here is minscule compared to that in the trade as a whole, but of course the problem for you is that the 'rubbishing' is normally the other way round, so it's acceptable.

Like quite a few others your problem seems to be that you just don't like a contrary opinion being expressed, and when it is you characterise it in pejorative terms that you just wouldn't use if you agreed with the view being put forward.

Thus to that extent it's you that's the biased one; I don't mind views contrary to my own being expressed, it's just that I try to counter them, not discredit the poster by accusing them of bias or whatever - that much is obvious - it's called having an opinion.



No, the rasion d'etre of the site is to discuss trade issues in general, and it's not my fault that restriction of numbers is regarded by so many as the most important issue. If you didn't think likewise then you wouldn't be bothered about the possibility of derestriction, and in fact you probably wouldn't be posting on here at all.

Pro-restriction organisation like the T&G and NTA rarely make utterances on anything other than restricted numbers, so the issue would seem to be their rasion d'etre as well, so why no complaints about them? Answer - they're on the right side, of course.

As for the financial, moral and social consequences re restricted numbers, we've discussed them ad nauseam, so I'm not sure what you mean by your statement.



I'm still not sure what you mean as regards bias - you seem to be saying that because our site has a different audience to your own then we shouldn't be able to have opinions? I'm sure I'm missing something here, so perhaps you could explain.

As for the second part of your statement, are you saying you have no objection to derestriction if proper quality controls are in place? Well since that's been TDO's position from the start, then I can't see how you can possibly be objecting to us





I always use the example of Brighton, where taxis and PH generally pass the same tests, run the same vehicles, operate from the same offices and charge the same fares from the same meters. Of course, in some areas such as your own the two 'sides' of the trade are more distinct, but in the end it comes down primarily to local regulation, not inherent characteristics of the market.

A similar related issue is that to the extent that some PH sectors are better regulated than some taxi sectors then some PH sectors offer a better service than some taxi sectors, although I accept that in general terms taxis seem to be more tightly regulated than PH at the local level.

But while agreeing with you to an extent, I can't really see what point you're making as regards the post I made.

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

After reading your responses and that of JD, there is no point in even continuing any attempt at dialogue.

Let it suffice to say that you have chosen to be selective in what you claim not to understand. I cannot see any way of making my opinion any clearer and do not believe you to be as stupid as you try to make out, so I can only suggest that we have different interpretations of the English language, and leave it at that.

I say this not through petulance but rather because I see no point in the frustration of further discussion with people who choose to act in such a manner.

Alan G

Act in what manner?

Address the substantive issues rather than do out best to avoid them?

All you've done is throw a few words like bias and misleading about, but when challenged you accuse us of avoiding the issues and now seem to be running away with your tail between your legs.

How about a critique of some of the articles on our frontpage, for example.

No, I didn't think so.

But you can scurry off elsewhere and tell your mates what naughty people we are.

Nowt new there then.

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

Well, for example, you could be a bit clearer as regards your use of 'bias', which to me seems merely an accusation of having an opinion, which is therefore not really much of an accusation at all, unless of course you yourself are biased.

So, please explain in simple terms, what's the difference between TDO and the T&G, for example, or is TDO biased, while the T&G has an opinion?

And could you please outline a few examples of what you call the increasing use of 'misleading statments' on this site?

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

leave him, the guy's an ass
if you were saying this on his site, he would have barred you
on here he turns tail and runs
he simply isnt up to the task of backing up his statements

Remind me please, what is the occupation of the lads applying for plates in Edinburgh?

Are they Hire Car drivers, or taxi drivers?

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IDFIMH

And then the person who is having his views rubbished (in your view) can reply to those claims.

Called having a debate.

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IDFIMH