Taxi Driver Online

Just been on a rare night out, booked a TAXI by phone from our local HC taxi assoc office, driver turns up in a PH car. They now have some PH cars on the radio circuit but I took the trouble to book what I thought was a HC (their advert says Public Hire taxis). What is the "spirit of the law " and/or legal view on this.
The driver said he did have both HC and PH badge but only PH badge on show, the car appeared to be correctly licensed and plated.

Is this just another nail in the coffin of the dereg debate and the blurring of already confused lines to the general public.

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Whats the difference? Aren't the majority of hackneys saloons in your area?

Regards

JD

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As long as the vehicle was correctly plated and the driver was licensed I think you would have a difficult job proving they have done anything wrong many taxi offices run both PH and hackney so if you have pre booked either can pick you up

Well it's certainly commonplace in other areas (such as Brighton) and there's nothing illegal about it AFAIK.

After all, since you could phone for a PH in Rochdale and legally have a Berwick plated HC turning up then getting a Rochdale PH from a Rochdale circuit doesn't seem too radical.

However, all this seems a bit of a grey area, and I doubt if that was how the trade was supposed to be organised, thus probably an oversight in terms of the legislation.

Their advert may be a bit misleading though, but this is probably not the domain of trade licensing, but if you are going down the private hire road to hire a public hire vehicle then if a private hire vehicle turns up to do the job then unless there's something fundamentally different about the two then I can't see your grounds for complaint.

OTOH, if you knew that public hire drivers had to have a knowledge test but you got a private hire vehicle with a new driver who was clueless then obviously there is a material difference.

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Sorry if I misled you guys, I do not have a problemor any complaint with the car that turned up, being former HC (and Ph) driver I just prefer the HC assoc staff etc. I just wondered if there was any legal problem that may be lurking under the surface. The car and driver were exellent and clean (unlike a lot of the local ph). It would seem that the HC assoc demand and expect the same quality of all vehicles on their circuit and that can only be a good thing.
I do feel however that when some on here go about plate values and rwsistance to dereg etc then this situation I experienced just proves there really is no difference between the two codes just a better quality offered by the more interested firms and assoc. No wonder the general public cannot see any difference and try to book ph on the street.

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