Taxi Driver Online

No mention of the incident the other day, but that's presumably the catalyst for this report

And not really that much here that wasn't in the report last year, which covered the overcharging etc.

And don't know if there's a bigger issue that the journo here is aware of and just can't say it here, or whether she's maybe not aware

But there was some evidence of what I'm getting at in last week's video

Anyway, some of the stuff in here...

Might say a bit later on, but can't be bothered in the meantime.

(Links to photos too big for on here.)


Why is there tension over taxis in St Andrews?

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/fi ... t-andrews/

Fife Council is looking into claims tourists are being ripped off in the home of golf.

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Tensions are rising on the taxi ranks of St Andrews.

It is claimed some drivers, described as “rogue operators”, are ripping off tourists with inflated fares.

Fife Council licensing chiefs are taking the allegations seriously and have increased spot check inspections in the town.

But some cab companies are also calling for marshals at ranks in a bid to curb the problem.

The issue was first raised a year ago, with claims unscrupulous drivers were charging well over the odds for journeys.

Others were allegedly turning up at venues pretending to be from a pre-booked company to steal clients.

James Glen, from St Andrews Taxis, says the council has since “failed to get a grip of the situation” despite many complaints.

‘Intimidation’

Examples include a £40 fare from Leuchars railway station to the Old Course Hotel, which should cost between £12 and £15.

Another person was charged £75 from St Andrews to Elie, normally a fare of around £35.

James claims reputable drivers and customers often feel intimidated by those involved.

“Established firms have operated in St Andrews without issue for years,” he says.

“But now these operators from outwith the area have moved in.

“They’re passing themselves off as local companies and ripping off customers with inflated fares. It’s wholly unacceptable.

“It’s worse now than I’ve ever known it.

“We need Fife Council to make spot checks more frequently and assign rank marshals as in Glasgow.

“Otherwise the current unsafe situation will not just continue, but deteriorate further to the detriment of customers in St Andrews.”

‘They think the streets of St Andrews are paved with gold’

Local operators have now set up a Facebook page called Rip Off Taxis in St Andrews, where they are calling out bad practice.

One operator, who asked not to be named, says the root issue is money.

“Taxi plates cost around £20,000 – three years ago they were £5,000,” they said.

“They’ve bought these expensive plates and they think the streets of St Andrews are paved with gold.

“They’re coming here and putting the meter on at the wrong rate to inflate the fares.

“There are some outrageous instances of it.”

Fife Council ‘taking St Andrews taxi concerns seriously’

Fife Council’s lead miscellaneous licensing officer Gilliam Love has issued advice to taxi customers on what to look out for.

She said: “We take the concerns raised by local taxi firms seriously and, as a result, have already put more frequent spot check inspections in place in the St Andrews area.

“We would always urge anyone with complaints or concerns about taxi fares to get in touch with us directly.

“We need evidence to be able to properly investigate these kind of allegations and take the appropriate action.”

Meanwhile, the licensing team has emailed St Andrews operators offering to set up a forum to discuss the concerns.

What should taxi passengers look out for?

Fife taxi fares are set by the council and are displayed on a card within vehicles.

A QR code on the card takes you to the council’s taxi licensing page, which gives details on how to make a complaint.

Meanwhile, all licensed taxis display internal and external plates, with taxis yellow and private hires white.



The external plates include the Fife Council logo, a plate number, zone, details of the vehicle and the licence expiry date.

And the internal plate also has a plate number so passengers can take a note of it if there are any issues.

All taxi and private hire drivers must also hold a licence, which includes an ID badge.

This must be on display within the vehicle and members of the public can ask to see it.

Concerns or complaints should be sent to enforcementofficer@fife.gov.uk.

I doubt if plates are worth £20k

Thought they were worth about £3k or so, and only found out they'd been going for a bit more after I'd got my new motor

If I'd known they were worth a good bit more I might have bailed out, but I'm lumbered with the motor now. Or, at least, lumbered with the repayments...

But somehow doubt they're worth £20k - maybe one went for that with a half decent motor, but who knows. Problem is, there's no real marketplace for them like what there was in Edinburgh, with brokers and advertised prices etc. There are well over 100 HC plates locally, but not exactly the kind of market where they're being bought and sold all the time, so who knows?

This is the Facebook page referred to in the article. Hadn't seen this before - some of it is a bit full on

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61558910893884

I think the biggest factor right across the UK is that the overall taxi market is shrinking requiring fewer vehicles.The night time economy has entered a sort of terminal decline since covid although it was in decline prior to that. This will obviously not be uniform across the uk with some areas declining more rapidly, whilst others appear to be holding their own.

Add to this the expansionist policies of Uber, Bolt, Veezu etc. and there will be tensions

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

There are a few websites knocking around that look superficially impressive, but in reality they're just a couple of cars, and it's not clear where they stop or start in terms of vehicles. (Although to an extent it's always been like that since the mobile phones explosion, and because of the fact you don't need a booking office licence for a couple of cars, so all you need is a mobile number and some cards, and these days a website.)

So there's a few of them trading under names like 'New York Taxis St Andrews' , and they use addresses in the town centre, but I don't actually think there's any presence at all at those addresses, and they're just fake (although they are real addresses). And, of course, they all use mobile numbers and not landlines...

This is the best one, though, and just came across this today. Think something's been lost in the translation here

https://standrewsshamtaxi.co.uk/

Dundee airport £50 it's surely only about 20 miles isn't it ?

I assume this site is a wind up although it looks professional I cannot see it as being an actual taxi swervice

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

Not a lot of love being shared there.

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IDFIMH

So how much would you charge for a 20 mile airport run?

It's actually only 15 miles to Dundee Airport and clocks about £48 on T2, which applies to all runs beyond the Fife borders

So the price on the website is actually more than clock, but not much more

If there was any serious trade to be had from Britains least used airport I would have thought around £25 would be a competitive price but having looked at the wikipedia page I doubt there are any fares to or from there. It looks as if the airport has fewer flights than teeside or carlisle !

I am wondering if I was to phone that mobile number on the website would it be answered by some chap called stuart !

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

Not sure what how busy Dundee Airport is has to do with the fare a taxi would charge to go to it - it's like saying your tariff to go to a pub or club would depend how busy it is...

But indeed there aren't many jobs going there, but I think they just put a list of the Scottish airports up for the sake of it, maybe hoping it'll entice someone into booking with them. I mean, I've never even been to Aberdeen Airport, although it's No 3 in Scotland after Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Been once to Prestwick - 26 years ago, in fact, when I think it was still reasonably busy, but I think it's just barely open now. In fact, I see Sham Taxis hasn't listed Prestwick on their site - wouldn't be surprised if they've never actually heard of it...

But, I mean, they've listed Inverness Airport . Never been there, and suspect I could drive a taxi for another 100 years here and never be near the place.

But, as I said, maybe they think it'll entice that lucrative one-off run simply by mentioning it on their website. And it kind of makes them mabye look a bit more experienced and bigger than the couple of cars they are with maybe a few months in the trade by listing all the possible destinations, that they'll probably never go near.

But there are possibly 20 or so similar websites in the area, all following the tried and trusted formula of listing all the possible airports, rail stations and golf courses, the latter obviously being a bit more of a St Andrews feature rather than on taxi websites more generally.

And guess who set up the first ever site of that type in St Andrews, c. 1999?

Another of life's big regrets - I was part of a start up firm back then, but bailed out before long, leaving the website - the only one in the area's trade at the time. So they got £thousands of work via the site, and I got jack

Could have pulled the plug simply by pressing the delete key, but I'm far too soft when it comes to stuff like that

Oh, aye, and you make it sound like it's me who's always pushing for higher fares rather than the other way round, Edders. And in fact it's our high fares here that have resulted in the rank chaos to an extent, in my opinion at least.

But maybe you could have it out with Sussex and Grandad about punting half-price fares because the destination isn't that busy

Says the guy who was the one who abandoned his unplated motor on the rank the other night while he went off to eat in a restaurant (I'd guess) with his other half and co-proprietor, and the parked minibus I posted a photo of

And more examples of 'do as I say, not as I do' in the article above, but maybe better not to go there in the meantime

But chances of taxi marshals in St Andrews less than nil. And, I mean, normally you'd think of taxi marshals in terms of controlling queuing punters rather than the drivers. But it's actually parking wardens that are required, and little chance of that happening other than very, very occasionally in early evening, and certainly not into the early hours

But can't recall last time I saw any punters actually waiting at a rank in St Andrews, even on Saturday night. Instead, a few weeks ago can recall waiting on the other night rank from 11.30 to 00.30 and concluding that I could wait there all night, and the choice then becomes between going home after waiting an hour for nothing, or joining the back of the main rank behind 15-20 cars for the worst of the drunks at 2/3am or whatever.

Which I actually did for 20 years, but only done a handful of times since lockdown finished, and can't ever see me getting back to that again, other than maybe a one-off if I have a booking, or similar.

So I don't know if there's much queuing at about 2/3am, but I very much doubt there's much, especially with the students gone for the summer. So chances of marshalls absolutely zero. In fact the town is basically policed at times by the door staff at the club round the corner, and the door staff at the takeaway opposite the rank. So, basically, it would be up to the trade to fund any rank marshals, and that ain't gonna happen

Suggest they make them red routes, which are enforced with CCTV.

Taxis and PHVs can still pick up and drop off, but no one else.

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IDFIMH

As I alluded a few days ago, it's a bit different to the likes of marshals in Glasgow and the likes of Dundee below, because 99.9% of the time in St Andrews it's the taxis and illegal parkers on the rank that need marshaled rather than the more normal scenario of rank marshalls controlling queuing customers, as would have been useful in this case reported from Dundee today. And Broughty Ferry is the posh part of Dundee

But another date-of-birth error, or he's had a pretty tough paper round


Apprentice electrician knocked victim unconscious in Ferry taxi rank assault



Callum Cook said he was initially acting as peacemaker in the queue-jumping row.

A man was knocked unconscious in an assault by an apprentice electrician in a row over queue-jumping at a taxi rank in Broughty Ferry.

The shocking incident unfolded in the early hours of the morning on Brook Street on March 29 this year.

The victim was left with a swollen jaw, a cut and visible bruising but told police he could not remember being attacked.

Callum Cook, 26, admitted responsibility for the assault and will learn his fate at Dundee Sheriff Court when a social work report is available.

Taxi rank attack

It was revealed the victim and a group of friends had been drinking in the Ferry and left to get a taxi at around 12.30am after leaving The Anchor.

Cook and his associates were described by fiscal depute Nicola Caira as acting “boisterous” and were accused of trying to jump the queue.

The court heard Cook and others were challenged about this once a taxi had arrived and were told to join the back of the queue.

Cook, of Blake Street, flew into a rage and punched the man on the face “on several occasions”, eventually rendering him unconscious.

Police arrived and could see blood on the road and the man was taken to Ninewells Hospital by ambulance.

He was unable to recall what had happened but police later found him to have visible bruising and swelling with glue visible on his head from where he had been cut.

Cook, an apprentice electrician, later handed himself in at police headquarters on West Bell Street before being cautioned and charged.

He previously pled guilty by letter to assaulting Mr Davis on March 29 this year by placing his arm around his neck, throwing him off balance to the ground and on regaining his feet, repeatedly punching him to the face and rendering him unconscious.

Peacemaker turned violent

In a written explanation to the court, Cook claimed he was initially acting as a peacemaker before becoming violent.

He said matters “got out of hand”, adding that he was “very sorry” and that his conduct was “totally out of character”.

Cook appeared before Sheriff Eric Brown without legal representation but obtained the services of a solicitor later.

He maintained his plea of guilty with sentence deferred until August for reports to be prepared.