Taxi Driver Online

Have a read of this, and are you thinking what I'm thinking?


EXTRA MILE Scots teacher forced to pay £350 taxi fare from Newcastle to Airdrie after being stranded amid Storm Arwen travel chaos

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/s ... orm-arwen/


Image: The Scottish Sun

A SCOTS teacher was forced to pay over £350 for a taxi from Newcastle to Airdrie amid Storm Arwen travel chaos.

Linda Jamieson, from Bathgate, made the trip by train to the north east city on Friday night as hurricane-force winds battered the country.

She and six others were visiting family over the weekend.

However, when they woke up on Sunday morning, they realised that all trains heading north were cancelled due to severe damage on the line.

Being a school teacher, Linda had no choice but to find a way to make it home for work the next day.

Two other people in the group also needed to catch a flight at Edinburgh Airport at 4.30pm.

Linda told the Scottish Sun: “We arrived on Friday about 6pm, the train was delayed and there were no seats so we were packed in like sardines as the 3pm train was cancelled so it was crazy.

“When we arrived, everything was fine, we went out for dinner then some karaoke before heading back to the hotel.”

After finding out all the trains had been cancelled this morning, the group were figuring out how they would get home.

Their only option was to book a taxi.

The hotel had arranged for them all to go back home in two separate taxis but they had spotted a people carrier sitting outside which would make their journey cheaper.

The eight seater would make it easier for them all to get home.

They asked the driver if he would be interested in taking them back to Airdrie - 150 miles away.

He came to the group’s rescue and agreed to help them out.

Linda added: “One of my sisters asked the driver if he would be interested in taking us to Edinburgh Airport and then on to Airdrie.

“The driver had a bit of a laugh at first.

“Luckily he said yes and he was up for it straight away but he had to check in with his office and it was fine.”

The total cost of the 159-miles journey ended up £357.40. [...]

Don't these people watch the weather forecast? The bad weather had been predicted for days.
Nice earner for the driver.

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Grandad,

So there was 8 of them meaning it costs them about £45 each.

And the driver took a risk that he car wouldn’t be written off.

But the biggest joke is a teacher rushing back to work.

Yeah right.

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IDFIMH

No CHOSE ` journos

two things caught my attention

1) why wasn't this a fixed quoted price

2) was the app being used as a meter ?

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

1. Because he doesn’t need to.
2. Makes a lot of sense to me.

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IDFIMH

I would go along with that. With the conditions there could have been some waiting time.

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Grandad,

So no one wondered if it was a legal hire? I'm guessing it was a PHV (hence the Autocab 'meter'), and the people approached it. The driver said yes, but put it through the office. Is that fully legit?

(Of course, it could possibly have been an HC working with a circuit.)

in my experience anyone wanting to go long distance like that the first thing they ask is how much including 90 per cent of jobs off the rank other than the really short ones

so uber insisted to the high court that apps were NOT meters but everyone treats them as such

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

In that case, the ‘proper’ meter should have been used, or more likely, you go for a fixed price ? (As it would have been a street hire)

If it's an out-of-area job I think the Autocab 'meter' could be used if that's agreed with the punter in advance?

In the context of HCs doing cross-border jobs, it's just a device used for calculating the fare, thus perfectly legitimate if agreed?

I suspect they did, but maybe they were given an estimate, which they agreed to. Easy enough for the office to work out the distance and fare. In fact, I suspect the Autocab software will do it for them.


That was quite a technical argument about the legality of an app in a London PHV, though, because London PHVs can't have a taximeter fitted.

In more general terms, it's just a method for calculating a fare, and could even be used in an HC for an out-of-area fare, I suspect, never mind a PHV, and no possible legal objection outside London, I suspect.

But my money's still on it being a PHV anyway, thus the question about the legality of the hiring. But, of course, a newspaper report unlikely to give sufficient information for an informed discussion on the legalities

Definitely a phv flimped job, no Newcastle hack would do that job for that price, at least a £100 below metered fare.

In my view yes.

We have to ask ourselves if your scenario is correct, exactly what law is being breached?

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IDFIMH

In this instance it doesn't matter either way.

The law in London is different from that outside of it. In London only hackneys can use meters, in the rest of the country that's not the case.

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IDFIMH