Taxi Driver Online

I suppose they were offered the chance by PHTM to give their side of the story.

https://content.yudu.com/web/43sy4/0A43 ... gin=reader

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IDFIMH

Where to start with all that?

Makes some reasonable points, but a lot of it is just pure spin, for example:


To an extent, yes. But the Wolves issue isn't about cross-border working per se - it's more about Wolves acting as some sort of national licensing authority, and thus the attendant problems with standards and enforcement etc.

If the Wolves scenario had been Parliament's intention then they would have legislated for a national licensing authority and/or national standards. Point is, Parliament didn't do that, thus to that extent it is a loophole

Can't be bothered going through all the details (for example, it's fair to point out that it's a bit pointless mandating fire extinguishers when drivers not trained to use them, but I suspect that whether or not a fire extinguisher is required is hardly a deal-breaker when drivers are considering which local authority to licence with ).

But, as regards CCTV for example, even if it can be switched off, it hardly helps the driver in any proceedings against him if it is switched off. And are councils which do mandate CCTV acting disproportionately, as is implied? And what they say about the DfT's guidlines in their defence is hardly consistent with what the DfT actually says about CCTV.

And there's this recent article in TaxiPoint, which says Wolves actually considering allowing CCTV audio recording because of various incidents etc.

https://www.taxi-point.co.uk/post/wolve ... -recording

Of course, that's purely voluntary as far as the driver is concerned, but it's all hardly consistent with saying that mandatory CCTV is disproportionate in the first place

And this also points to a wider problem with the whole of the council's piece - it's basically saying nothing to see here in terms of safety and enforcement etc, but that's largely inconsistent with the recent stuff about rolling it all back because of CSE, Rotherham, Telford etc

But it is now a "ready made" solution for a national licensing system bearing in mind it already handles a lot of the nations licenses and has the experience. Seperate enforcememt from licensing and that might work and be more cost effective for drivers than the £500 to £600 pounds many now have to fork out

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

I take issue with their repeated 'we don't benefit finacially' bo*****s.

They do. They have 123 staff who benefit, and I would be amazed if most of them haven't been reassigned from other departments rather than made redundant.

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IDFIMH