Taxi Driver Online

On reflection the PH (as in vehicle) isn't insured, a punter or third party is, but the vehicle and driver are not.

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IDFIMH

That is how it should be expressed. Although it is quite a bit for a Council to put on the stickers that PH vehicles display that just say "not pre booked - not insured".

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Grandad,
To support my charity text MAYORWALK to 70085 to donate £5

Last thing I will say about insurance on this thread, as it's not really pertinent to the thread, is that the issue only really arises when other drivers get it wrong when they talk to punters.

If another driver says 'don't get into that PH without pre-booking as the car isn't insured', then that's correct.

If another driver says 'don't get into that PH without pre-booking as you aren't insured', then that's not correct.

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IDFIMH

And if another driver says don’t get into that PH without pre- booking because that would be illegal?

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Former taxi driver

Just lost another case and have to give jobs back to sacked drivers and pay compensation.

These Drivers seem to work for an Algorithm!!.....Uber seems to deny any knowledge of them and blame their algorithm, I find that truly terryfing, our lives are run by AI.

Recent and interesting judgement that involves Addison Lee.

As with Uber AL have had drivers challenging them in the Employment Tribunal.

These cases were put on hold until the Supreme Court made their decision in February.

Looks like AL's lawyers were saying the AL driver's situation wasn't the same as Uber drivers situation.

The High Court disagreed.

https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2021/594.html

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IDFIMH

All private hire operators should be reconsidering their employment practices regarding these so called self employed private hire proprietor, it is only a matter of time someone knocks on their door asking for his/her holiday pay and their minimum wage payments.

It isn't cheap to be an employer. Unless you know exactly what you are doing there are many pitfalls. We used to have a very basic contract of employment but we realised that there were many issues with it so we brought in a human resources company to take care of this for us. We now have very comprehensive contracts that protect both the staff and the company. They also take care of such things as training for staff on aspects of their job that most people would not think of. But by providing this training we are legally covered should things go wrong. We have an online payroll system which does all the calculations of wages, holiday pay and pensions. And then there is the actual pension scheme where we have to keep the staff updated on things that happen with the scheme. Fortunately, we do not have to pay employers National Insurance because the Government give us a £4,000 annual allowance for this. This means that we can't claim back sick pay etc. under normal circumstances. We obviously have to contribute 3% of employees earnings to the pension and the employees contribute 5% of their wages. Not forgetting that we have to account for VAT on every fare.
Having said all that, at least if we get the knock on the door we are in the clear and can sleep at night and once set up it doesn't take much time to run the payroll system.

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Grandad,
To support my charity text MAYORWALK to 70085 to donate £5

Judgement to cost Uber $600,000,000, or £431,000,000.

https://news.sky.com/story/uber-hit-wit ... s-12297920

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IDFIMH

I see the old "you're not insured" argument raises its head on here again. Before jumping on that bandwagon, everyone should check their insurance policy to see what the wording is. It's in te small print.

It's not always so that a private hire car taking a fare off the street is "uninsured". when I was in the business my insurance covered me for the carriage of passengers for hire and reward. Plain and simple. Nothing about the right operator's licence be it PH/HC or PSV. The driver had to have the right licence. My DVLA licence allowed me to drive cars, nothing saying I couldn't carry passengers for hire and reward EXCEPT on vehicles with more than 8 passenger seats. That was covered on the D1 and D section, the PSV entitlement which Ive held since 1973!

I'm certain a number of drivers have ben wrongly prosecuted for driving without insurance when they actually have insurance for the purpose of the Road Traffic Act if they cre to read their policy properly.

Where I work at the moment we had a memo round asking to see our car insurance documents as we were carrying other staff members in our own cars on company business. I have full business use as well as the usual SDP, including the carriage of passengers in connection with my business (as a bus driver) NOT for hire and reward. I can therefore get the government mileage allowance for using my car for my employers business, but would I risk doing a private hire job? No. For one I'de be doing a licenced vehicle out of a fare, second, my insurance doesn't cover me for that type of journey.

A bit off-topic for the Uber case, but hey ho...Oh, and th bsu company employs a licenced cab with driver for its staff transport on weekends getting drivers to and from the depot and remote locations. It's a bit of regular money for the driver when times have been hard.