Taxi Driver Online

Usual jumble of terminology here. I mean, is the headline here talking about HCs and not PHVS, and the strapline talking about PHVs only, and the headline is perhaps the generic 'taxi' usage?

Doesn't really matter if all the HCs and PHVs had defects anyway. And the strapline doesn't really make sense in that it's pointless saying 'several PHVs failed roadside checks' if they all failed

Scrappage rather than just suspension quite unusual, though


All taxi cabs stopped in Liverpool spot checks ‘defective’ - one so bad it had to be scrapped

https://www.liverpoolworld.uk/news/live ... ve-3949660

Several private hire vehicles failed roadside checks.

Enforcement checks for the taxi and minicab sector in Liverpool ended in disaster on Thursday, with all vehicles stopped displaying defects.

‘Operation Bikes’ took place on Thursday December 8, in a collaborative effort from Liverpool City Council (LCC) Licensing and Merseyside Police officers.

One taxi had such severe defects it now has to be scrapped, and several cabs and private hire vehicles failed roadside checks, receiving suspension notices.

What has been said?

A spokesperson for Merseyside Road Policing Unit said: “Operation Bikes working in conjunction with Liverpool City Council Licensing to check hackney cabs and private hire vehicles are safe and operating correctly.

“Unfortunately after thorough inspections all the licensed vehicles stopped so far have defects... one to the extent it will now be scrapped!”

Liverpool City Council and Merseyside Police have been contacted for comment.

In fact the article is just a rehash of a police tweet, which is brief and to the point, and makes it obvious what is meant in terms of HCs and PHVs. The press just confuse things with their different and confusing terminology








Image: Merseyside Police Roads Policing Unit/Twitter

what the *#^~ was that driver doing he was risking going to jail if he'd had a crash and hurt passengers !

mind you I suppose it might have been a visiting cab from Blackpool !

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

Do they have an age limit on vehicles in Liverpool or Sefton??

Not sure, Skippy, but there's chat on the Echo's website about the vehicle testing procedure, which seems to be contracted out to independent garages. There's a list of around 30 'Approved MOT testing stations' on Liverpool City Council's website, which I assume do the compliance testing:

https://liverpool.gov.uk/business/licen ... -stations/

Operators can also do their own testing, by the looks of it. And I'm definitely not casting any aspersions here, but you would think there would be a more robust and independent system in place rather than what effectively amounts to self-regulation:

https://www.villagetaxisliverpool.co.uk ... compliance

Can't find it now, but wasn't there a big scandal about this a few years ago, and an article about it should be on here?

When you have random vehicle checks and the majority have serious defects it does not paint a rosy picture for that local industry.

The average incomes in that area must be very low if those inspections are a guide.

My guess is this down to 1 of 2 possible reasons.

1) There are too many drivers working in the area or

2) There is no competition (one or two big companies with a monopoly) resulting in the taxi companies having low prices

A possible third reason could be the costs of operating a vehicle enforced by the council so over regulation.

However, looking at those pictures it appears the vehicles are very old so the restrictions on type of vehicle is not too strict.

It might be a mixture of reasons 1 & 2 that are contributing to the problem.

It will be interesting if the council there decides to implement CAZs and other crazy rules. The standards would probably drop even more and a lot of drivers would probably leave the trade.

I'm sure Mr T can paint the picture but Delta are very big and there used to be the Davy liver group/ Cabfind who had a very big fleet not sure the current situation but IIRC the area dominated by big players.



are you thinking of the Derby "scandal" ?

http://www.taxi-driver.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=35967&p=402374&hilit=Derby+vehicles+unfit#p402374

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

As if I'd confuse Derby with Liverpool, Edders

I mean, even if my geography is a bit ropey at times, can never forget the yellow HCs in Derby

But I was confusing two issues - think it was the in-house badge stuff that I had in mind, rather than in-house vehicle inspections. Same principles apply, though. As it was reported back then, the council considering taking the exams back in-house to stop 'cheating' and 'corruption'

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=34639

Then there was an article a few weeks later when mayor Joe Anderson complained about a driver's knowledge after he was picked up, and this looked like they were softening up the process of taking things back in-house:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=34945

As for offices in Liverpool, I think Davy Liver now comes under Britannia Taxis. Which in turn seems to be a regional Veezu, ie hoovering up the minnows, especially financially distressed ones.

But the dynamics and economics of running an office in a large urban area will tend towards the bigger players. Small operations just don't have the critical mass to cover such areas and have a reasonable expectation they'll have cars in a particular part of the city. And if they can't guarantee that, people simply won't phone them.

In a smaller town, an operation could be just a fraction the size of the big players, but could still better hope to cover the whole area. I mean, in our town all the office cars just return to the town centre, so there's not so much advantage in having enough cars to cover the whole town at any particular time

Might be the third or fourth time it's been scrapped.

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IDFIMH

I’m curious how many vehicles were tested. Whilst any unworthy vehicle is one too many, in the grand scheme of things what % are they talking about. Also if Liverpool licensing had a robust ad hoc testing system in place perhaps this wouldn’t have been so bad. Using the police instead of their own enforcement is a tad lazy and more expensive imo

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

Toots, no doubt others know all the ins and outs regarding this sort of thing, but I think police actually have powers to stop moving cars that LOs don't, which could be a factor. And that might also be relevant to cross-border cars, which LOs may not have the powers to inspect, but that might depend on any local authority agreements and protocols in that regard.

As regards numbers, what may be a factor is that they've obviously put the cars on the ramps and performed a more thorough inspection than possible at the roadside. Which will thus always result in a greater failure rate. I mean, if you took cars at random off the road and put them on a ramp etc (and I don't just mean the trade), then I'd be very surprised if all but a minority didn't throw up a fault or two of some kind, however minor.

And, of course, as regards the trade, I'd guess they target older, more obviously neglected looking cars, so the stop-check fail rate always likely to be higher than if the selection was totally random.

On the other hand, a spot-checked car needing to be scrapped is of a different order, and obviously raises eyebrows

If police and licensing aren't looking into that further then they aren't doing their job