T wrote:
T: You need a stable environment to get investment, we have had years of uncertainty, de-reg, WAV, etc. Is the service any better in de-reg areas, do drivers earn more, work less hours ? Change has to bring advantages or why bother.
I agree that we need a stable environment for investment Mr T, but I disagree with your point about unrestricted areas. Restrictions may help some people, but not others - in a restricted area I worked in I was earning about £2 an hour dayshift less than a decade ago. And there was still a 'shortage' of drivers, according to many plate holders - clearly £2 per hour wasn't low enough for them. So many drivers had to work long hours, and in my experience plate holders didn't bother about how many hours they worked. I'm not saying all areas are like this, or all plate holders take this attitude, but your post doesn't show the full picture.
By contrast, I would imagine that London cabbies are among the biggest earners in the trade, with no quota in site - of course, entry is restricted there, so this drives up earnings, but the system there is a level playing field, and the restriction is on the drivers, not the means of doing the job, which just gives those who hold plates a financial stranglehold over other drivers.
T wrote:
T: Turn up and its there !! It's there because the rank has been serviced by drivers and customer know that it is where you can get a taxi, is that not goodwill ? No taxis no customers, chicken and egg.
No rank, no taxis, no customers - so the goodwill belongs to the council? Surely the point is that goodwill depends on the ability to attract customers, and that just isn't the case in the rank and hail markets. If you argument was correct then drivers in unrestricted areas should have goodwill to sell on, but they clearly don't. If there was goodwill in the economic sense then it would not disappear automatically on de-limitation, but it does.
That's not to say that there isn't goodwill in the trade, but this normally relates to things like phone numbers or a company name, and for the vast majority of drivers this just isn't relevant.
In theory I suppose there could be a goodwill scenario in the rank market - for example if a driver had people going to his car specifically on the rank. To that extent he could sell his business to somone else, and to that extent this would constitute goodwill, but in that kind of case the goodwill would probably attach only to that driver, and thus there would be nothing sellable to any other driver.
T wrote:
T: Do you think it right that after years of work you have nothing to show for it ? The current system is far from perfect but swinging from one extreme to the other is not the way forward. Nothing is ever that simple.
Millions of people have nothing to show for years of work except a state or occupational pension or a pension that they've paid out of their earnings. The cab trade is no different - the vast majority of PH drivers and even taxi drivers have nothing at the end, except the minority group that represents plate holders.
The problem with the system you endorse is that it may create some winners, but a lot of losers at the same time, and is also something of a lottery.
For example, you said earlier that drivers in your area could go on a waiting list after 3 years, but what happens after that - it may be fairer in some areas than in others, but in some places it's something of a lottery.
There could be some merit in a 3 year apprenticeship, for example, before a plate is awarded, but then since the plate would have no value from your perspective the whole thing would be pointless. Or if you said that you could buy the plate before the three years but not get one free, then that hardly concurs with any kind of 'apprenticeship' argument.
I think a better idea is to impose reasonable barriers to getting a badge, which will boost earnings, and in turn this will allow drivers to save or contribute to a pension - then the longer in they are in the trade, the more they will have to show for it.
Dusty