Taxi Driver Online

I wonder what would have happened pre 1993? If a Liverpool PH operator had appealed to a magistrates court . Saying the Liverpool street knowledge test is a unreasonable condition , as the local authorities up the road have not got one and I can not recruit drivers, surely that would make that particular condition unreasonable. Regards streetcars

Expansion wouldn't have to mean jobs way outside our local office. That's my whole point, there appears to be plenty of room for 'real' expansion right here on Merseyside, and that would not require buying other firms or getting another office or using cars licensed by other areas. Just more of the same I guess. Lots more.

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Don't knock it, 'til you try it....

Ah, but might not a magistrate have said 'Whilst I sympathise with your recruitment difficulties they unfortunately have no bearing on the issue we have come here to contemplate, that being whether or not it is reasonable for your licensing authority to insist on you displaying a minimum level of road knowledge before carrying the passengers they are charged to protect. I happen to agree that it is quite reasonable for your licensing authority to demand a succesful CRB check, and if that also has a detrimental impact on your recruitment then that is something you will just have to live with. We cannot drop standards just because you cannot find applicants of sufficient calibre. Are we to employ illiterate teachers or criminal policemen just because we cannot fill our vacancies?' Or perhaps words to that effect, me thinks!

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Don't knock it, 'til you try it....

I can't as yet find any reference to this case. I assume Liverpool charged Mr McKenna with plying for hire in which case it would have gone to the magistrate's court first, the only way it could have ended up in the Crown is by way of appeal? What year was the case heard?



And we can assume that Liverpool licensing department didn't know a thing or two? Was Damien Edwards in charge at the time?



I would have thought by your above statement the charge was most likely to be one of "illegally plying for hire", would that be the case?

It would be interesting to read the crown judgment but I doubt it being reported. If you have a transcript of some sort I would be obliged if you could post it on TDO.

Just as an aside, can you tell us if any Delta driver has ever been successfully prosecuted for illegally plying for hire?

Regards

JD

You are right ,but . So your argument is you cant find policemen, or teachers intelligent enough to do the job, so we just don’t have policemen or teachers. As you know, Liverpool PH tried a few months ago, to do away with the street knowledge test. I know its ten years to late. But is not it a valid argument that Knowsley, as you pointed out, have not got a street knowledge test. Seftons so easy it can’t really be describe as a test. Surely it might be worth a go, for some PH firm, with recruitment problems to appeal against this condition. Regards streetcars.

I think we have to draw the distinction between Private hire and public hire. Where it would be perfectly reasonable to subject a person to a public hire knowledge test because he is plying for hire in a public place, the same requirement of knowledge is not necessarily needed for a private hire driver. The P/H driver can obtain instructions from a radio operator or if he is a one-man band he can consult his A to Z, before he embarks on his journey.

The thing everyone needs to consider is that it is not what a magistrate might wish, it is the interpretation of the law and what constitutes a reasonable condition under the statute? Magistrates may desire many things but if they apply the law incorrectly there is always someone up high to reset the balance.

There was a case in Scotland concerning the Civic Government Scotland act in respect of keeping records for vehicles sold in the second hand market. Every council in Scotland applied a certain condition because they thought it was the right thing to do, they found that legally it was the wrong thing to do when one particular council I think Edinburgh, were taken to court and given a lesson in law.

So like I said, there is no provision in the 1976 act for a knowledge test for Private hire drivers. Whether or not the condition by Sefton or any other council applying such a condition would stand up in a court of law, is open to question.

Regards

JD

But is there a provision in the 1847 or 1976 acts for a knowledge test for cab drivers?

Answering my own question, but the answer is no. In two areas not far from me cab drivers don't take a knowledge. One of them doesn't even have meters.

As for PH knowledge, I feel that those lads doing, for want of some better words 'radio taxi' work, then a knowledge is a must, especially when the fares are calculated by a meter.

The point made about them knowing where they are going prior to picking up is valid, but how many times are destinations wrong and/or customers change their minds?

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IDFIMH

Your falling into the trap of disregarding the law and substituting what you personally would like to see happen and incidentally so would I. However we can't disregard the law as it stands and where a court may determine a public hire condition is lawful they might take a different view in respect of Private hire?

Ones own personal desires are not the issue here, what is at issue is the legal interpretation of a condition currently applied by several councils. The object may be in the public interest but would a court find the condition legal?

Every council in Scotland felt their condition was in the public interest but legally it was outside the law. My own belief is that the private hire condition would also be outside the law but I'm sure others including yourself might disagree.

Regards

JD

I'm all for tight quality controls in every respect but it would appear the only obstacle to obtaining a badge of any description in Sefton and many other places excepting the CRB check is a local street knowledge test?

Don't you think drivers should know the local Taxi bylaws and have a good grounding of the rules and regulations that govern the P/H and Taxi Trades before they are let loose on the public? Or do you think that such quality controls are unnecessary?

Regards

JD

Yes, you are quite right. It was only a magistrates court, apologies if I mislead you by stupidly referring to a judge. Like the man in the orthopaedic shoe, I stand corrected!



Erm, now that does ring a bell. They seemed desparate to try almost anything to get the Liverpool Hacks off their backs.



If you mean taking a street fare that wasn't pre-booked then yes, of course. From the naive (coerced by off-duty hack drivers to please help them out and run them round the corner as they can't get through to Delta on the phone and they are going to miss last orders) right through to the blatant bad boy (prowling the streets of Liverpool cherrypicking the most lucrative fares they can get their hands on). It takes more than Delta door signs to turn a sinner into a saint and there's a limit to our policing ability. There's rogue elements in every trade. City Hacks picking up flags in Sefton, Sefton Hacks picking up flags in Liverpool, it goes on, but I think it gets blown out of all proportion when work's a bit slack. That's when cab drivers see EVERY Delta with an eyepatch and wooden pegleg!

If you mean just being empty and stood still, then no. No Delta driver has been successfully prosecuted for plying for hire just because they were waiting in the wrong place for a radio job.

Regards

DeltaStaff

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Don't knock it, 'til you try it....

Thank you for the reply, can you tell me if Delta are still using the raywood system or have you moved on to something else? And can the Raywood system easily cope with the amount of work you guys have?

Regards

JD

You should never underestimate the critical role PH operators play here. Every day our drivers radio in for guidance on issues such as 'Am I allowed to refuse this guy with a guide dog?', 'Am I obliged to carry this much luggage?', 'Can I stop my passengers from smoking?', 'What do I do with this lost property?', 'Am I allowed to carry this 8 yr old kid in the front without a booster seat?', 'What's the best route now that Breeze Hill is blocked off?', 'What would be reasonable to charge a pregnant lady for puking in my car when she cleaned it herself and I only lost half an hour?'. Our supervisors are not only qualified to answer these queries but also empowered to impose penalties on drivers who ignore their advice.

YES, common sense dictates that pre-training in the rules and regulations of the industry make for better drivers. But we carry over 300,000 passengers a week which is quite likely more than any other firm in Britain and not ONE of our drivers has so far received any such training and they are let loose on our customers every second of every day. They CREATED our customers. So NO, I'm inclined to believe that it isn't necessary as clearly there are alternative ways of maintaining excellent standards of service.

The only reason we want our drivers to pass the new VRQ Level 2 pilot scheme is to prove to the likes of Merseytravel that we are good enough to fit into their transport solution. Let's face it, if you personally thought good painters wore baseball caps backwards on their head and were offering £500 for someone to paint your house then hand me the cap Sir!

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Don't knock it, 'til you try it....

Yeah, we're still using the old ugly looking Raywood system that works, not the new sexy looking Raywood system SRC bought that doesn't work. We've fine tuned our old system to bang out 1500 jobs/hr without even breaking a sweat...

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Don't knock it, 'til you try it....

So basically what your saying is that some drivers rely on you to change their nappy because they don't know how to do it themselves? What happens when they leave Delta and there is no one available to look after them? Do you think the public deserves drivers who don't know the legal parameters of how they are licensed to work?

Did Mr McCaughrey radio in to ask you if the bylaws permitted him to have sex with a 16 year old passenger in lieu of payment? Perhaps if Mr McCaughrey had familiarised himself with the bylaws he may have known it was an offence to fornicate in his vehicle with a passenger. I'm sure such an event must have caused your firm a great deal of distress until such time Mr McCaughrey was eventually found not guilty of rape? Even then the stigma of such an incident must take a long time to evaporate from the minds of your customers? Perhaps Mr McCaughrey is a prime example of why we need quality controls for drivers?

I congratulate Mr. McLaughlin for what he has achieved but in respect of quality control of drivers I'm firmly in the Go Skills camp although I don't subscribe to their theory that drivers should pay any one particular agency for requiring those skills. If it came to a push most of the skills advocated by them could be learnt online free of charge, all you need is a half-decent memory and a will to learn.

If anyone is wondering what the reference to Mr McCaughrey means, it is in reference to an incident which took place in 2002 involving a 16 year old passenger where Mr McCaughrey was found not guilty to a charge of rape. There can be no blame attached to Delta cars even if Mr McCaughrey had been found guilty but the facts are he wasn't. Perhaps the only thing Mr McCaughrey was guilty of was being naive.

http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100 ... y_continue

Regards

JD

I'm merely contributing an opinion I have formed through first hand observation. No matter how distasteful you clearly find the notion of 24 hour supervision I believe it has been a defining factor in generating and maintaining our customers. You ask what happens to drivers when they leave Delta? Well in some cases where a driver has been caught numerous times over-charging or swooping on another driver's fare or being rude or aggressive to customers we have withdrawn our radio and parted company. The same drivers continue working on other firms like SRC. Now, has that driver suddenly seen the light and transformed himself into a shining beacon of good customer care, or are SRC just afraid to lose another rental? You decide.


And therein lies the fundamental flaw in your argument. Perhaps if he had familiarised himself with the bylaws he might have known it was an offence. Come on Mr JD, when a taxi driver rips off a customer by taking them the long way round how often is it due to a lack of road knowledge and how often is it down to a lack of integrity. In my experience it tends to be the latter and knowledge tests ain't going to cure that one. It's a beautiful notion you have that human beings only do wrong because they don't know what's right but it's one I just don't subscribe to. Do you think on 20th February 1994 that 20 year old stabbed a taxi driver in the back with a fish filleting knife before kicking him in the face and setting fire to him because nobody had pointed out to the poor misguided youth that it was wrong?


I agree, it was a moment of weakness during a painful separation with his wife. It was criminally stupid but not criminal. Now that he has put that behind him and is making a succesful go of things with his wife again I am sure he will be so very grateful that you have resurrected the issue just to get in a cheap shot. You disappoint me Sir.

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Don't knock it, 'til you try it....