Taxi Driver Online

I know that this can be a sensitive subject, to say the least, but, I for one believe that immigrant drivers, whether from within the EU or not, are being increasingly abused by unscrupulous employers. (probably "self employed", but no matter) I am hearing increasingly alarming tales of certain firms which turn a blind eye to drivers working 18-20 hour days, seven days a week. This from drivers themselves, at least those with some grasp of the English language. There are reports of drivers living in their cars, sleeping on the back seat when off duty. Though anecdotal, there is some evidence to back up these reports. The driving standards of some drivers are bordering on the reckless to dangerous. Is this happening in your manor?

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Former taxi driver

As certain as can be this happened at least once in my manor.

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IDFIMH

they will get their own back once they get enough experience and work out that if they get together they can open their own offices and undercut onther offices ,are you prepared to work the same hours to keep a cab on the road?

Good point

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Legal and proud

Loads a love from BERTIE !!

I've always thought that a possibilty, but I've discounted it.

Why? Because the great Bristish public, in the main, don't like immigrants taking work from home born folks. And even if they charged cheaper fares I really don't think it would matter.

Might be wrong, only time will tell.

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IDFIMH

Cheaper fares are precisely what the punters want. If you take the proliferation of Asian private hire and Asian Taxi firms you will see the public aren't that concerned about ethnic origin.

In the NorthWest private hire trade My own estimation would be that at least 75% of drivers are of Asian origin with at least 65% in the Hackney trade.

There is no reason to believe that a second explosion from Eastern Europeans won't manifest itself. The seeds have already been planted.

In places like Oxford, Asians own 88 of the 106 licensed hackney cabs and it's a similar story around the country excepting for rural areas such as Lincoln etc.

It's no coincidence that Exams such as the London knowledge have proved a deterrent for many applicants especially those of ethnic origin but where entry into the trade is made easy then you are bound to get a massive influx of drivers. Can you imagine what would happen to the London Taxi trade if controls were lifted? What would happen is what has already happened throughout the rest of the country and that is why we are in the situation we are in today.

It's going to get a lost worse if the vested interests who represent our taxi trade don't get around the table and formulate a direction which can take this trade forward and where the emphasis is based on quality driver control rather than outdated quantity controls.

The London model is only based on street knowledge and its about time they introduced other elements to the test such as bylaw and legislative conditions of license, English language tests, written and verbal testing, etc and any other aspect that is relevant to qaulity driver controls. Perhaps if London take the lead the rest of the country might follow.

The future of this trade is in our hands and its about time we took charge of it and looked at the bigger picture and forget about quantity controls because quite frankly that particualr issue has set us back decades.

Regards

JD

With the greatest respect, theres an awful amount of pants in that statement





I tend to agree jimbo, but you missed one tiny little bit

Unscrupulous Private Hire Operators.

Flooding what is a relatively unskilled occupation with ‘cheap’ labour. It wouldn’t matter is these people were home bred Anglo-Saxons, the fact of the matter is that the supply is being flooded without thought for the demand.

The oversupply of drivers will invariably lead to either more hours for everyone (for the same money) or less money for doing the same hours.

CC

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Well I suppose we can look forward to your enlightened reasoning as to what type of pants you refer? Without making this a personal reference I shall use the word "we" instead of "I" and suggest that "we are already titillated by your response so far".

Regards

JD

My Dear JD, I meant pants in the best possible manner, great use of the word ‘titillated’.

The royal ‘we’? , I’m impressed!

I think the main thrust of Jimbo’s point was the influx of East Europeans.

You seem to forget the firms bringing in East Europeans are ensuring the drivers are trained for each area and are passing the standards currently in place.

The quality controls you write of are nothing more than a mirage or Trojan horse.

The fitness and propriety of drivers is a matter for the LA, however, even if the trade manage to get uniform high standards around the country through national legislation, how high do you expect these standards to be?

I presume the standards in place in an area such as Plymouth for example are reasonably high. Further to this, one particular firm PH company is an approved trainer with both ISO certification, indeed I believe they sit on the board of ‘GoSkills’, so it should be assumed that the training we are all going to get in the future will be loosely based on the current ISO standards.

It could also be stated that if an area such as Plymouth, with high standards already in place, is managing to get East Europeans licensed, then the rest of the country will soon follow suit.

The points you make about reading, writing and speaking in English are obvious, however, English is the common language of the world (okay its Chinese by default but lets not go there), its reasonable to presume that the trainers and agencies will ensure that the people they provide have adequate enough English to pass any test.

In areas which have DSA testing of driving ability, East Europeans are successfully passing the driving tests.

Going down the line of the other standards we should perhaps have in place, but could be easily passed.

Why should a Private Hire driver take a street knowledge test? The work is pre-booked, the driver should know the address of pick up, name of passenger, destination and appointed time.

Given the above facts and considering anyone can look in an A to Z and pick a route from A to B, we should maybe consider that technology now has us with GPS, Sat Navigation and some of the ‘in car’ private hire systems have mapping, why should a street knowledge test be in place for private hire?

A summary of standards that can easily be passed;

CRB Check

Driving Test

English test, written, verbal and otherwise

Knowledge test of license conditions and streets


Should we make people jump through hoops as well?

CC

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

I'm going to answer this post in two parts because I have to go out, urgently.



I don't know if Jimbo meant to restrict his comments to Eastern Europeans or to include all immigrants? However if his thinking was to restrict the immigrant intake to just eastern Europeans then I expanded it to all immigrants. I don't suppose you have a politically correct problem with that, do you?



My whole point is that standards need to be raised from the level they are at now. You are on record as saying that Go skills should be abolished and their projected standards are too high. So you and I have a distinct parting of the umbilical chord when it comes to standards?



The standards I speak of are undoubtedly high and that is why you don't like them. You think they are too high for the average immigrant to pass but most of the standards I speak of can be found in the Go Skills blue print. It is precisely because of the representative Taxi trades stand on restricting numbers that we find ourselves even discussing this aspect of quality entry control.

High entry standards should have been implemented years ago and it's only because of the fragmentation of the Taxi trade and the lack of lobbying from organisations such as the NTA and others that they weren't introduced.



At the moment standards are a matter for each individual licensing authority but that has always been the case. There is no earthly reason why that could not change. If the trade was united I have no doubt that such changes would be implemented, whether it be to a national standard requirement or local standard requirement incorporating minimum national standards such as bylaw and legislative knowledge.



I have no idea what the standards in Plymouth are, do you? They certainly wouldn't incorporate the high standards of entry that I advocate? And they certainly won't incorporate the high standard of entry that Go Skills have highlighted. So your presumptions of the quality of Plymouths standards are more than likely incompatible with my own standards, and probably those advocated by Go Skills?

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Regards

JD

Before I go out I've just observed that the NTA website doesn't have a link to the most populated and informative website on the Internet, that being TDO. Yet it does have a link to LTI and your own forum, which incidentally is in the death throws of extinction?

Do you not think the NTA should take account of popular informative forums such as this and post a link to TDO considering TDO has a link leading to the NTA website? Don't you think it's about time those at the NTA realised where the real action is and buried their prejudices towards free thinking sites such as this?

Do you agree Captain?

Regards

JD

Plymouth PH take the same knowledge test as HC, but with a slightly lower pass mark accepted, however most seem to pass with 90% or more. they also have a medical, a Plymouth Council hour long driving assesment (similar to the DSA one) and a CRB check from their home land. the Taxifast training teaches them what they need to pass the test, get them all first aid trained and a few customer relations things.

To clarify, for those that need it, I am talking about people who are legally allowed to work here, mainly eastern european. We actually have more than our fair share here, Lincolnshire is mostly agricultural, but where these migrant workers are now aiming, bus drivers, taxi drivers, mainly traditionally low paid work, it is my proposition that a sudden influx of cheap foreign labour that is now depressing wages in these industries. Consider. Many bus companies complain they cannot employ bus drivers, (at £11,000 a year) so import workers from the east to fill these posts. But unemployment is 1.5 MILLION. So why not pay bus drivers £15 or £18K? Because they want the cheap imports. We have already exported call centre jobs, and the only jobs we cannot export, means that the taxifasts of this country will import cheap labour. Nothing to do with plate limits, pandora's box is open.

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Former taxi driver

So whats the answer Jimbo? EU or not? We've had immigration for years and your only now waking up to the effect it has had on the Taxi trade and how it will further impact on the Taxi trade in the future?

You've been quite content to amble along in the knowledge that you have your plate to comfort you? Don't tell us this is going to be the winter of your discontent?

Regards

JD

Perhaps I live in a strange place because the local punters do nothing but moan about ethnic drivers. Now that could be because they aren't that fair minded a bunch, but a lot of it is that regrettably some drivers don't help themselves.

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IDFIMH