Taxi Driver Online

I particularly like this quote from Young - v - Scampion 1989.

"a Birmingham licensed taxi does not lose its character as a Birmingham taxi when it enters Solihull, but it does not thereby become, in addition, a Solihull taxi."

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IDFIMH

This case however might go against the local trade and might be what the council and the docks are looking at.

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=4662

It will all depend on access to the docks, which are via a number of different routes. If the general (non-boat public) are not allowed on site then it could be argued the docks are not a street under the act.

All that said, I go back to one of my previous posts and repeat that, IMO, it's simply not practicable for non-local hackneys to ply for hire at the docks.

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IDFIMH

I find this is the big problem with so much taxi law being the result of court cases there is often conflicting case law!

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

Is that summary correct?

It reads to me that the court you can't do pre-booked work in an out-of-area HC, but I don't think that's correct, unless an intended use policy is in place? (Although for the purposes of the case, presumably there was no intended use policy in place, and presumably the case didn't address intended use policies... )

Reading it again it’s not a great summary.

Basically the judgement dealt with two questions from the lower court.

1. Was the operator acting illegally by giving work to a non local Hackney? The higher court said no.

2. Was it unlawful for a non local Hackney to stand or ply for hire in an area he was not licensed in? The higher court said yes.

Regrettably the higher court decided not to deal with the issue of what was a street, thus didn’t say if the car park was a place where one could be viewed as unlawfully plying.

The higher court didn’t say that individual hackneys need an operator’s license, if anything they confirmed the reverse.

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IDFIMH

Trade reps



I invited feedback on behalf of ABP at the last Taxi Forum regarding Eastleigh hackneys being allowed to purchase docks permits.



Following a lot of trade concern today, I fed back the following points in a call with a senior ABP manager today:



• Eastleigh run off a different fare tariff and this would give an imbalance, and also not be in accordance with the new agreed signage

• Eastleigh vehicles can be any colour and have different roof signs. This would make the ABP ranks look like a general hackney area and lead to confusion with other taxis.

• The goodwill that has been built up between SCC drivers and ABP staff will be lost.



My advice to them was not to proceed and they agreed with this advice. However, they did state that they wanted to see less reluctance for drivers to follow marshals instructions to go less popular terminals at busy times as it was less profitable. They need all the terminals covering and want to work with you to make this happen.



Please pass this on to drivers.

This was the email that Licensing sent us today.

It appears that the licensing team are on your side, which is always a good place to start. So well done to them.

What I would add to the above is that they must be careful not to get into too much of the business side of the trade. There are two parties in this matter, the docks people and the trade, and I would prefer that the licensing team were facilitators rather than negotiators.

In short trade reps should be the ones talking to the docks people, not the licensing team.

If there are problems with supply, at some times, then surely the carrot (extra surcharges) is a far better way of dealing with the issue than the stick (out-of-town hackneys).

Those coming off the boats have spent £1,000s on their holidays, an extra pound or two to get to the station in a safe and timely manner shouldn't really be a problem to anyone.

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IDFIMH