Taxi Driver Online

Delta bid to take on hackney cabs


Apr 4 2007




by Adrian Butler, Liverpool Echo



A BOOTLE private hire firm could be about to eclipse Liverpool’s black cabs.

Delta, currently building a £2.5m headquarters in Bootle, will soon have more cars on the streets than there are Liverpool hackney cabs, bosses predict.

But black cab drivers today challenged Delta: “If you want to work in Liverpool, move here.”

The existing system allows drivers based in Sefton to pass easier exams to qualify as drivers than their neighbours in Liverpool, although they are free to cross the border and work in the city.

Delta company secretary Paul McLaughlin said: “We have taken on 200 additional drivers in the past year and a lot of them have come off the Liverpool hackneys.”

At the moment there are around 1,417 black cabs in Liverpool. Delta has more then 1,200 cars at the moment, but expects to have 1,400 by the end of the year.

The firm already claims to carry more than 15 million passengers a year.

This means Delta could overtake the largest fleet of hackney cabs in Britain outside London.

Delta is currently building a state-of-the-art headquarters on Strand Road for its 100 workers who do not drive, bringing it even closer to Liverpool. It will house engineers, call centre staff and a driver training centre.

Tommy McIntyre, Transport & General Workers union representative, said: “This is going to be like a red rag to a bull to the drivers here.

“If all their work is in Liverpool, why aren’t they based here? All our new applicants have to go through an 08 course to help visitors to the city – they don’t have to do that.

“It beggars the question what is the point of going through all that when neighbouring firms can just cut across the border?”

Liverpool city council defended its tough criteria, saying it was backed by drivers.

adrianbutler@liverpolecho.co.uk


Top

Oh good at least they'll leave me alone!!

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

If that's true, and I have no good reason to doubt it, then what are the plate barons from Liverpool going to do.

They might even, if they have got driver's licenses, have to drive their own cabs.

And the fewer cab drivers there are driving Liverpool cabs, means that when the next SUD survey happens they might find some.

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IDFIMH

You always go on about plate Barons, and what they will lose, and that is the bit that makes you look stupid, when will you get it into your thick head that they have all ready made their money, they have banked it long ago , put it into houses and flats and things like that, the plates that are on the road now cost them peanuts, you will never understand as long as you have a whole in your a**...

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

Well then what's their problem?

Or is it just plain old greed?

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IDFIMH

They haven't got a problem, you're the one with the problem, big fat chip on your shoulder, if you worked half as hard as they have you be doing very well for yourself, one of the fleets is expensive, the reason he is expense is that he pays through the nose for insurance, most of his drivers cannot get insurance Cover, in other words they would not be working and earning a living if it wasn't for him, but you never think of these people only what is best for you and people like you in your situation. and that's a fact.

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

I often wondered why Mr T, a man of means, never stuck his toe in the Liverpool pond. The truth is, he new about this impending, disaster for the hackney trade. He posted about it on here often enough.
Perhaps if people had listened to him. The hackney trade would not hit floor, with quite such a crash, which when this call centre, gets up and running, it will undoubtedly will . This is the real issue, that the hackney trade should be addressing .
Quantity control or no quality control . There is a Delta out there and its coming to get you . I do feel sorry , for the people who bought into a Liverpool plate . The plate premium never reflected its true value . It was never worth, that much more than a Sefton plate.
It will be a defining moment, in the Liverpool cab trade . The day those 100 people in the call centre start work . What will it be, lower fares economy of scale and all that. More advertising . Its no ones falt ,its just progress. Streetcars.

Well that makes me feel so much better. Loads and loads of drivers that can't normally get insurance are now driving cabs.

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IDFIMH

That's right Sussex , everybody is not as perfect as you, imagine getting six points on your licence and them being involved in an accident, would never happen to you would it, in your perfect little world.... .

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

May I suggest you give your sob stories to the insurance companies.

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IDFIMH

Streetcar, I have seen Liverpool plates bought for 22,000 and sold two years later for seven , sometimes you win sometimes you lose, I have said before money is not my God, I'll always make a living, all you have to do is work out the sum's.

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

That's how you can tell the really greedy people, you are only interested in yourself, you would never buy a WAV, you would want a saloon because that's best for you, we got your number...

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

Is it my fault folks can't get insured? No.

Is there anything I can do to make that happen? No.

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IDFIMH

Please don't judge me by your standards.

I have never made a penny out of other driver's hard work.

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IDFIMH