Taxi Driver Online

A laudable aim, and an issue that would never have arisen in relation to waiting lists if numbers had never been restricted in the first place.

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

War's a gamble Skull, and here's another, while we are on the subject:

Driver A buys a PH vehicle for £3k.
Driver B buys a purpose built hackney carriage for £30k.

(Let's assume in this example, that neither plate has an artificial value by the way)

Now, on the following three premises:

1) Markets can go down as well as up.
2) Past performance has no bearing on possible future performance.
3) If something can go wrong, sooner or later it will go wrong.

Let's consider a serious and fairly prolonged downturn in the taxi trade.
(And here, it should be noted, there is little flexibility left within the trade to absorb such a shock, since most of the extra capacity to do so was squandered during the seventies, when taxi fares failed to keep up with inflation.)

Driver A, after a few months, sees no alternative but to sell his vehicle, as he can no longer sustain his losses. He can't sell within the trade because nobody is buying, so he reverts his PH vehicle to a private vehicle and sells it on the second hand car market.

Because of the massive size of this market, he is able to make a quick private sale, at close to the market value and leaves the trade with manageable losses.

Driver B, also holds out for as long as possible and soon realises that he too must sell, or face ruin. He can't sell within the trade because nobody is buying - but neither can he easily sell his purpose built vehicle on the second hand car market, because it's just too specialised.

His eventual choices turn out thus: To sell it to a specialist exporter at a massive loss, or have the vehicle re-possessed. Either way his residual loss will be more than he can recover from and he faces ruin.

Substituting the words "purpose built hackney carriage" for "the plate" and "the market will not fall" for "the council will not de-restrict", in your above definition of gambling, it seems that driver A took a (very reasonable) risk, while driver B took a (very serious) gamble.

If that gamble were seen to have had been forced on a driver by the council, with their stringent controls over vehicle choice, then a down market might result in a council facing some sort of legal action taken upon them by that driver.

To my way of thinking then, the wider the choice of hackney carriage vehicle type, a council gives a driver, the safer it is for both.

In the light of which, CEC's recent ruling on vehicle type would seem to be a step in the right direction.

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The higher the fewer.

But surely, denying the issue, is not really the point. It became abundantly clear at a very early stage in the game, that a method of restricting the number of plates would have to be dialed into the equation and that by doing so, it would introduce all these attendant problems.

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The higher the fewer.

Or as the actress said to the bishop as they squatted in the potting shed admiring his forced marrows:

1) What goes up, must come down.
2) None of us are getting any younger.
3) Sh*t happens.
4) Now kindly pass me a dock leaf and we'll say no more about it.

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The higher the fewer.

One would assume that the norm is to treat punters with respect and it is abnormal to be disrespectful, especially for no apparent reason? Just as a matter of interest how many drivers do you know who go out of their way to be disrespectful to punters? Assuming that under normal circumstances all drivers are punter friendly including myself, is there really any mileage in your argument? Unless of course you have evidence that proves respect for punters is not the norm?

You talk about service but the main reason people turn away from any firm whether it is hackney or private hire is the fact they can't get a cab. If you leave a punter standing at a Taxi rank for twenty minutes on a freezing cold wet winter night, the percentage call is that they wont be waiting around the next time they go out. Likewise when you need a cab or private hire at a certain time of the day and they turn up late, the percentage call is you won't use them again. All this talk about being polite to punters is a red herring because the majority of cab drivers "are" polite to customers. I made the point that under normal circumstances it is abnormal not to be polite, so where does that leave us?

Just for the record I made no implication that "passenger respect" is the sole domain of drivers working on radio circuits.

Regards

JD

I don't recall having said that? Perhaps you should try Dusty?

Regards

JD

Not before time tooooooooooooooo!

Do you know if CEC's decision has effected any of those dissenters who wanted to deny others a choice of vehicle, minus the 25 foot turning circle?

Regards

JD

The thing about surveys is that the Scottish High court has already determined that a council must keep itself informed of demand, on a regular basis. The last survey conducted by CEC was redundant six months after it was undertaken. According to the High court in order for CEC to refuse an application at this moment in time, they would have had to keep themselves informed on a regular monthly basis. I state monthly because the High court actually said, "every time the committee meets" but seeing as CEC meet nearly every month, then that is what will apply.

Periodical surveys are neither here nor there, what is important is that surveys are frequent and accurate, otherwise the LA in question will have big problems, as was the case in Dundee.

Amongst other things, in the cases sheduled for next year, I do expect the high court to mention surveys yet again? In fact I'm hoping the Scottish Taxi trade and of course every Scottish council will be left in no doubt as to what is required in many aspects relating to Taxi licensing.

We might as well try and get all these Scottish anomalies done and dusted in one fell swoop, instead of continually having to go back to the High court.

Regards

JD

Is a complete stitch up expected because this lot needs to be stopped in their tracks?

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All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
George Orwell, "Animal Farm"

Do you mean a complete stitch up by Edinburgh council in some way before this goes to court? Are you thinking Edinburgh council might decide to issue licenses to these applicants, therefore allowing themselves to keep control of a policy that might otherwise have been scuppered by the High Court?

If I was advising Edinburgh council in this matter I would be telling them that they had reached the end of the road and that they will most likely lose in the High court.

I would then advise them that in order to retain any degree of control over hackney carriage license policy they should issue the outstanding licenses and reconsider their future strategy in respect of their current policy.

I would then inform them of where they stand legally in respect of a future legal challenge. I would tell them that a precedent has been set but only in the Edinburgh Sheriff court, which will probably stand in this court but it would mean it can only be overturned by a challenge in the High court.

I would then inform them that the precedent in question takes the form of section 3 part 1 of the Civic Government Scotland act 1982, which relates to the statutory functions of a licensing body in respect of considering license applications.

I would then inform them that they could no longer disregard an application and expect the Sheriff court to grant an extension of time if section 3 part 1 has not been satisfied.

I would then inform them that under the normal time frame of six months there is no conceivable excuse that could be applied in order to gain an extension of time for such applications, which an Edinburgh court would accept apart from exceptional circumstances.

I would then inform them that the case of 3maxblack v CEC had been well and truly made redundant by the ruling of the Sheriff Principle in the case of Salteri and others v CEC.

I would then inform them that even if they take the steps recommended by me they could still find themselves defending a judicial review based on the verdict handed down by the sheriff principle and in which case they are likely to loose.

That is the advice I would I give to Edinburgh council.

Regards

JD

Apologies to both TDO and JD here for mis-attributing the post. (Thankfully an infrequent occurrence on the forum, as I can imagine it causes a fair amount of foaming at the mouth for both parties.)

The post should have read, of course:

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The higher the fewer.

We all make mistakes Onzon. Even Prime Ministers, Judges, the Clergy and Presidents. So you are in good company.

Regards

JD

Agreed, you most certainly did not. I was intimating that even on top of a drivers undoubted professionalism, a personalised attitude to a customer can have a measurable effect on repeat custom and thus business growth.

It just didn't come out that way the first time round.

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The higher the fewer.

At a cost of £20k or so per survey, with a frequency of one month, that's a cost of over £25 per hour.

Assuming that that sort of budget is actually available, it would give CEC ample scope to commission just about any form of supply/demand monitoring they could possibly need. (Note I have used the word monitoring rather than survey here, which I think is much more appropriate.)

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The higher the fewer.

Yes, thanks for that.

We think they intended to use the Interested Parties List to pave the way for issuing plates rather than face the music of the High Court Judgment. An announcement was scheduled just before Christmas informing everyone of the proposed changes as to how things would operate in the future.

Now everyone knows the Interested Parties List is a dead duck the council so much as look at it and wee will be in there making sure it's another minefield.

Just what they don't need at the moment.

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All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
George Orwell, "Animal Farm"