Taxi Driver Online

Ooft - another fatality involving a pedestrian near Wrexham (about 10 miles from the one last week in the wee Welsh village), but this time it was an ejected 'taxi' passenger, who was then struck by another car.


KingKabs respond to coroner's concerns after passenger death on A483

https://www.chesterstandard.co.uk/news/ ... eath-a483/

A TAXI company has issued a response after a coroner raised concerns following a passenger's death in a collision on the A483.

John Gittins, senior coroner for North Wales East and Central, had issued a Prevention of Future Deaths report notice to Chester-based KingKabs following an inquest into the death of Wrexham man Andrew Howat.

The inquest, held on November 12, 2024, heard that Mr Howat, aged 40, had been a disruptive passenger in a KingKabs taxi as it travelled from Chester to his home in Wrexham on October 15, 2022.

The driver stopped the car at a layby on the A483 near Gresford, making a call to KingKabs' operator to complain of Mr Howat's behaviour. Mr Howat left the vehicle at this point, and the driver drove off.

Shortly after, Mr Howat, who was intoxicated, wandered into the carriageway and was struck and killed by an oncoming car.

The coroner, having heard evidence from the driver and KingKabs' operation manager, issued a Regulation 28 Prevention of Deaths report to KingKabs Chester. He said he wasn't satisfied that appropriate measures were in place to ensure the authorities are notified that a taxi has left a passenger in an unsafe location.

Responding to the report earlier this month, KingKabs said: "First and foremost, we wish to extend our sincere condolences to Mr Howat’s family and loved ones. As a business we remain committed to ensuring the highest standards and have carefully reviewed the matters of concern highlighted in your report, wishing to respectfully address the two key points raised: (a) the driver’s adherence to training and guidance; and (b) the failure to contact the police on 999 during the incident.

"Driver Training - The driver’s decision to discharge the passenger at an unsafe location is deeply regrettable and we acknowledge that their actions on this occasion fell short of the standards we would expect. While drivers are trained to balance their own safety with their duty of care to passengers, we recognise that this tragic outcome signals a need to reinforce and clarify our procedures with drivers.

"To further enhance this message, we have updated the “DR18 Driver Information & Advice” document, issued to all drivers during onboarding. Specifically, two new sections were added (Legal Duty of Care, Incident Procedures: Breakdown, Accident & Violence) and another strengthened (Managing Confrontation & Violent Situations) to provide clearer guidance on resolving confrontation, emphasising duty-of-care and the importance of safe decision-making in difficult circumstances. On the 3rd January 2025, using our document sharing feature, we have updated all our drivers with the enhanced clearer guidance.

"As a company we have taken this opportunity to reach out to all our c. 1,300 drivers covering not just KingKabs but to the wider group, ensuring consistency and firm commitment in our message."

Regarding notifying the police in such situations, KingKabs said an attempt was made to call 101 (non-emergency services) by the manager on the night of the incident, but that "we understand that this was not successfully completed".

KingKabs said: "Whilst was on hold with 101, he overheard a colleague say there had been a serious accident in the same location. assumed it was linked with his call, hung up immediately and dialled 999. On review, the process followed by was not adequately documented and the procedures within it could be made more robust.

"As such and in tandem with the driver KingKabs Limited procedures, we have documented a new set of ‘Driver Incident Procedures’ in “CC002 Call Centre Procedures” document for call centre staff, which provides clear and detailed guidance on when and how to escalate incidents to the police and other emergency services. The updated version of CC002 has been sent to all staff on 3rd January 2025."

I mean, how many 'taxi' firms have formal procedures like those outlined above? Presumably KingKabs must be quite a big operation. And note the Uber-esque language like 'reaching out' and 'onboarding'

But if the coroner wants to effectively blame the cab firm here, how about others like police and liquor licensing councillors? It's them who effectively enable hazardous situations like this, then leave others to pick up the pieces.

And this is the coroner's formal notice here, which contains a bit of extra detail if anyone interested.

Maybe X-ray will have the inside track on it all


Andrew Howat: Prevention of Future Deaths Report

https://www.judiciary.uk/prevention-of- ... hs-report/

This is a report on the inquest a couple of months ago.

If your frame of mind is anything like mine then this might wind you up a bit


Coroner probes Chester KingKabs after passenger death on A483

https://www.leaderlive.co.uk/news/24718 ... eath-a483/

A CORONER is to issue a prevention of future deaths notice to a taxi company after an inquest into the death of a passenger on the A483.

Andrew Howat, of Jarman Avenue, Wrexham, was sadly killed after being hit by a car on the southbound carriageway near the Gresford junction on the evening of October 15, 2022.

At County Hall in Ruthin on Tuesday (November 12), an inquest was held into the 40-year-old's death.

It heard that Mr Howat, a self-employed scaffolder, was in a KingKabs taxi travelling from Chester to back home to Wrexham when the incident occurred.

At around 10.40pm, Mr Howat, a father-of-three, was struck by a blue VW Golf having stepped into the carriageway - shortly after leaving the taxi which had pulled over into a layby around 40 metres away from the incident occurred. He was sadly pronounced dead at the scene.

The inquest heard that another KingKabs driver had collected Mr Howat from The Abode hotel in Chester after police officers had arranged the pick up, due to Mr Howat's level of intoxication.

The driver then stopped at the BP Garage on Wrexham Road on the outskirts of Chester due to Mr Howat's disruptive and "aggressive" state, telling him to leave the taxi. A short time later, a worker at the garage called another KingKabs taxi for Mr Howat - which came to collect him from the petrol station.

The inquest was shown dashcam footage from the car of next KingKabs driver, Mark Wilcock, who had picked Mr Howat up. In the footage, Mr Howat is heard repeatedly swearing and asking where the driver is going. Mr Wilcock is heard multiple times telling Mr Howat to stop touching him. At one point, Mr Wilcock is heard saying: "You're going to make me crash". The taxi driver also repeatedly asked Mr Howat to pay the extra £10 needed for a fare to the Hightown area - with company policy being that fares over £10 are paid up front.

Around 15 minutes into the journey, Mr Wilcock pulled the car into a layby on the A483 - demanding Mr Howat pay the extra £10 needed. He then presses the emergency button in the vehicle to speak to an operator, saying the journey has been a "disaster", again telling Mr Howat to stop touching him. The operator asked Mr Wilcock if the police needed to be called, at which point Mr Howat exits the vehicle. Mr Wilcock can be heard telling the operator that Mr Howat has left the vehicle, before he drives off.

The inquest heard that several motorists had to swerve out of the way of Mr Howat who "jumped" in the way of their vehicles, waving his arms in the air. Dashcam footage from another taxi shows the car having to take evasive action to avoid Mr Howat as he steps out in front of the vehicle.

Evidence was heard from Jonathan Riches, the driver of the VW Golf, which was involved in the collision, who said he saw break and hazard lights ahead. He pulled out into the right-hand lane and began to slow down, but then saw a person stood between the two lanes with their hands in the air.

The inquest heard Mr Riches attempted to swerve further right to avoid them, almost coming off the road, but Mr Howat moved further into his path. The car struck Mr Howat, who was pronounced dead upon the arrival of the emergency services shortly after 11pm.

Ian Thompson, a forensic collision investigator with North Wales Police, said it appeared Mr Howat had been attempting to "wave down" oncoming vehicles. On an unlit carriageway at night and the short distance that Mr Howat appeared in the road, Mr Thompson said Mr Riches had "very little chance" of avoiding the collision.

A post-mortem examination revealed that Mr Howat had a blood alcohol level of 291micrograms per 100 millilitres of blood - the legal driving limit being 80. He also had traces of cocaine in his system. The medical cause of Mr Howat's death was multiple injuries.

John Gittins, senior coroner for North Wales East and Central, quizzed Mr Wilcock, and James Ward, operations manager for KingKabs in Chester.

Mr Wilcock said he didn't know he was picking up someone who had just been removed from another KingKabs taxi. He said he pulled over as he a "time out to calm myself down" due to Mr Howat's disruptive behaviour.

"He was playing with my ears and being quite aggressive," Mr Wilcock said.

Asked if it was safe place to leave a passenger, Mr Wilcock said: "No I don't", but when asked if he, in hindsight, should have stopped in a safer place, Mr Wilcock said: "I wouldn't do anything differently." The coroner thanked Mr Wilcock for his honest opinion, but said: "I do not agree with it."

Mr Ward said that KingKabs runs training for drivers and call operators on what to do in similar situations. He said that drivers should notify the control room of disruptive or aggressive passengers, and that policy is to block that person from being able to book a journey with the company.

Mr Gittins recorded a conclusion of road traffic collision, but said he will be issuing a Regulation 28 Prevention of Deaths report to KingKabs Chester.

The coroner said he wasn't satisfied that appropriate measures are in place to ensure the authorities are notified that a taxi has left a passenger in an unsafe location. Mr Gittins said the notice would be raising the question with KingKabs as to what measures are in place to mitigate risks to both drivers and passengers.

Mr Gittins added that the impression given of Mr Howat in the inquest would not be the same as the man his family "loved and remember", and that was because of "what he had consumed" that night.

Oh


Oh


Pity we don't have cornoners moonlighting as police, running pubs and working as taxi drivers - the world would then be absolutely perfect, no doubt

There's just something about it all that gives me the impression (sarcasm alert), that the deceased might have ended up dead wherever he'd been dropped. But nothing like blame-shifting and guilt-tripping, eh?

Says the coroner sitting in his nice cosy chair in his nice cosy office.

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IDFIMH

None.

It's a ridiculous suggestion from the coroner and the taxi/PH firm should have said so rather than sucking up to him.

What happens if a punter is bashing up a driver? Does he have to allow the bashing until he can park up in a nice quiet area?

That makes so much sense?

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IDFIMH

So when a taxi or PH driver hits some pi**ed up numpty on a road it's down to the pub or club who let him leave off his head?

Or if someone gets off a bus pi**ed out of his head, and gets squashed, that's down to the bus driver.

TBH it's no wonder that the trade is struggling to recruit drivers.

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IDFIMH

And as for calling the police.

By the time they would have arrived the punter, had he not been hit by the other car, would have sobered up and been back to work the next day.

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IDFIMH

https://cityfleet.co.uk/kingkabs-chester/

I’m sure they have enough PR specialists to spout such dross!
Incidentally, they also acquired CMAC last year. There’s still a lot of Hackney drivers smarting from when Fraser Eagle went bust, which eventually morphed into CMAC. When they took over the the station ‘call outs’ we refused to cover any of the work and Arriva then dealt with us direct. Then Avanti took over and gave it back to CMAC, so now kingkabs do the work.

Ah, yes, x-ray, that must be where the 1,300 drivers in the earlier article came from - I was looking at the dedicated KingKabs site earlier, and the claimed 500 drivers.

Or 'driver partners' to be precise, as per the page you linked to.

So that's 'driver partners', 'onboarding' and 'reaching out' from just a press article and a page on their website.

And I saw something on TaxiPoint describing black cab customers as 'riders'

I call them Uberisms

Like a lot firms kingkabs have lost a lot of drivers to poober. They have moved onto a commission (percentage) based settle system now. It’s a minimum of £50 per week but once you go above that amount in jobs, (£250) it becomes 20% of all jobs. Once a driver takes £670 the commission stops.

Yes, the commission-based approach also seems to have been a distinctly Uber thing that seems to have been replicated by some of the legacy operations, particularly the bigger players.

Ditto multi-operator (or, more specifically multi-app) working. I doubt there are many firms who still take phone bookings that allow their drivers to work for other operators, but I think there may be a few...

Meant to say yesterday that among the coroner's super-human powers is that he started investigating the incident before it had even happened - with powers of foresight like that, no wonder he would have managed to prevent the whole incident happening if he'd been in the driver's seat

https://www.judiciary.uk/prevention-of- ... hs-report/

(Actually, looks like just an error with the date - it says the incident happened on 15 December, while it looks like 'December' should actually be 'October'. On the one hand, no point nitpicking about minor errors like that; on the other hand, maybe that does illustrate that the coroner is a bit misguided if he thinks dealing with aggressive drunken and coke-fuelled taxi passengers is easy - in the grand scheme of things, any shortcomings on the part of the driver and office were relatively minor, albeit with tragic consequences )


Well if the people at head office aren't spewing about it all, I'd guess most of the drivers are more than a bit annoyed about it all

But, as is often the case, it's maybe more of a PR/comms thing, and they don't think there's any upside in dissenting from what the coroner says. Most members of the public - not to mention councillors and politicians - will probably think like the coroner, and think it's easy enough to avoid incidents like that above. So better for KingKabs just to go with the flow, rather than give the public and powers that be the impression they're not bothered about 'vulnerable' passengers.

Of course, that's just the way the whole system works, and we all do it, to a greater or lesser extent.

Took me a while to find this the other night; maybe it's just me, but I got the distinct impression from what the coroner said that the junction was 400 yards further on, and that the driver should have been aware of it. But if the layby below is the right one (and there don't seem to be many laybys on this road, or at least in what's called the 'Gresford bank' area. Earlier reports said it took place between junctions 6 and 7, so I was looking on the approaches to a junction, while if the layby below is correct then it's just after junction 6, which is presumably the junction referred to by the coroner...) then it's a few hundred yards before the layby where the driver stopped.

But it certainly looks a bit more out in the middle of nowhere than I was expecting - bit like a two-lane motorway, but of course motorways don't have laybys...

But, I mean, somehow I suspect it's not the fact he was dumped here where it was dark that was the immediate cause of his death...I mean, if you broke down in your car and got out of it, what are the chances of being hit? Effectively zero, unless you walked on to the carriageway, or if a passing car was driving dangerously in some way and encroached onto the layby...

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.0982993 ... FQAw%3D%3D

And this below seems to be the junction where the coroner thought the driver should have gone up and dumped the passenger there...but where, precisely? It's a narrow slip road, with a roundabout and overpass at the top, and nothing much else about there - we all know that type of junction, and would the punter have been any safer there, given his actions?

And there are all sorts of other imponderables. I mean, if the driver had pulled up the slip road looking for an ultra-safe place (which might have taken a while to find), there's no way of knowing how the punter might have reacted. Couldn't help thinking of that video the Sussex posted of the passenger grabbing the steering wheel - had one of them once upon a time, and if there had been cars coming in the opposite direction, we would have collided head on...

And maybe there's a reason the driver drove past the junction and then decided to terminate the trip, but there are lots of variables, and in my opinion the coroner doesn't seem to have considered them properly, and effectively just blamed the driver and office.

And, as Sussex said, suppose he'd stopped elsewhere and phoned the police, how long would they have taken to roll up? Chances are they wouldn't roll up at all, unless there was an immediate threat to the driver. But if the deceased had by then exited the car anyway...

Apart from that, I don't have any particular view on all this

(Next instalment tomorrow... )

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.1062491 ... FQAw%3D%3D

So the hotel where the fella got rat faced isn’t to blame, according to the coroner.

The police that put a rat faced punter into a taxi to try and get rid of him aren't to blame, according to the coroner.

The fella himself who was a nuisance (me being nice) it appears most of the night wasn't to blame, according to the coroner.

The driver who hit the fella wasn't to blame (despite many cab drivers being blamed in similar situations), according to the coroner.

No the ones who kopped the blame are the driver who was being bullied by the dead fella, and the staff in the control room.

I'm guessing the coroner has never had to personally deal with pi** heads at night.

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IDFIMH