Taxi Driver Online

Quite an interesting and informative piece this (particularly since it's aimed at the general public rather than the types who read stuff on here) but spoiled by the alarmist headline, just like the other Press & Journal piece the other day about Aberdeen - imagine a similar headline about the MoT system for members of the public...

Hence my thread title, which I think more realistically describes the piece from the trade perspective

Hundreds of cabs banned from roads for failing taxi safety checks

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/ne ... ty-checks/

Hundreds of taxis are being banned from the roads every year for failing routine council safety checks.

In some parts of the north of Scotland, as many as 40% of the vehicles tested have been pulled from service until they have undergone repair work.

Yet a large discrepancy has emerged as the figures, obtained by The Press and Journal, have revealed that pass rates of 100% have been recorded in other locations.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) stipulates that taxis and other private hire vehicles must be subjected to more rigorous testing than other vehicles, meaning that a car could pass an MOT but still fail a council check.

However, the ways in which these tests are conducted vary between local authorities.

For example, Aberdeen City Council will pull vehicles off the road immediately for failing to meet certain criteria, ranging from mechanical issues to customer-facing concerns such as incorrect meter clocks or broken taxi signs.

Meanwhile Highland Council uses a penalty points system operated by its trading standards team, with more points leading to more frequent inspections and even licences being revoked.

As a result, road safety campaigners have called for more consistency between local authorities, resulting in a fairer system for taxi drivers in the process.

Neil Greig, director of policy and search at road safety charity IAM RoadSmart, said: “Very few councils insist on driver training or even customer care knowledge when they issue a licence.”

“Councils and taxi firms must realise that if they can make their customers feel safe, comfortable and wanted, they will come back time and time again.”

He added: “We support the highest possible standards of training and vehicle safety for taxi drivers.

“Anyone applying for hire should expect to be closely scrutinised.”

An Aberdeen City Council spokesman said the rigorous local authority tests carried out across the country are designed to ensure each vehicle is safe for use.

He said: “The council, as the licensing authority, has a duty in relation to public safety and to the convenience and travelling needs of the public – therefore vehicles are required to meet a higher standard than those set down in the separate MOT test.

“All operators and drivers have access to a comprehensive taxi testing manual which has been created by the council to support the preparation of each vehicle for testing.”

Aberdeenshire Council said its fluctuations in pass rate were likely down to circumstance, as there have been no changes to how it checks taxis or what staff look for in recent years.

Penalty points

Since 2006, Highland Council has operated a somewhat unusual penalty points system to ensure the safety of its taxis and public hire vehicles.

During each examination, the local authority’s trading standards team will assign points based on failures to meet certain criteria relating to safety, documentation and driver behaviour.

As a driver acquires more points, they will be subject to more frequent inspections.

The council says that this promotes self-regulation and also stops resources from being wasted chasing taxi owners with faulty vehicles.

Once someone acquires 10 points they will be given a written warning, while reaching 20 points within two years will mean they are reported to a licencing committee or manager and formal action to remove their licence could take place.

Points are awarded for a multitude of reasons. For example, high-risk or obvious tyre faults warrant seven points, while a missing ID card earns a driver five.

Three points will be awarded for a missing or broken taxi sign, and sanctions can also be issued under the categories of external and internal cleanliness, licensee behaviour and driver’s appearance.

Trading standards team leader Mark McGinty said: “Should too many points be accumulated we report the matter to the licensing committee alleging the licence conditions are not being met, this may result in an a licence being revoked, or more commonly an increased inspection frequency is given.

“Over time we feel this keeps standards high but gives licence holders ample opportunity to correct the things they have failed on and to put something in place to prevent them failing again.”

Does it?

No.

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IDFIMH

Rereading the article earlier, and seemed a bit odd the way they referred to a 40% failure rate early in the article, but the piece never states where precisely the 40% fail rate occured.

Luckily the link to the article is still live, so realised that I hadn't included the graphic with the orginal post above. So more than six years later, here it is - better late than never

(Guess I didn't post the graphic because it was a bit too wide to display well on here, but I should have at least linked to it...)

So in the Western Isles they tested the thick end of 300 cars over three years, and not one failed

Yet if they'd had the same fail rate as in the Orknies, around 100 cars of the 300 would have failed.

Funny, that

Maybe TPTP crunched the numbers

But obviously they haven't got the DVSA memo at a certain West Midlands licensing authority

On the other hand, the P&J's claim was, as we concluded at the time, incorrect

But - and I hadn't thought about it this way - Wolverhampton licenses something around 35,000 PHVs, which is more than all of Scotland's HCs and PHVs added together

And not a fire extinguisher to be found in any of those 35,000 Wolves cars operating here, there and everywhere

(Although I daresay quite a few Wolves-plated cars carry them on a voluntary basis.)

Incidentally, and while it's not like me to be pedantic, what is the purpose of the word 'other' in the extract from the P&J's article above? It makes it sound like a taxi is a type of private hire vehicle, or something like that. The word 'other' in the passage above is unnecessary and misleading

(And if you want to get really technical, the reference to 'private hire vehicle' is also incorrect, because of course the legal term in Scotland is 'private hire car'.)